Who Am I Without You?
by BadLuckVixen13
Summary: From the voice of an unnamed narrator, the recount of the choices that lead to his seventh year, the year of his his 'emptiness.' However, with the seventh year only comes more pain, more pain than either of them could have imagined.
1. How They Met

_Beyond this longing,_

_Nothing exists._

_Beyond this pain,_

_Nothing exists._

_Your smile t__ears me to pieces_

_And reminds me of how much of a fool I was to let you go._

_Who am I without you?_

It was another school year. Yes. Yes...Another boring train ride that had no meaning but to carry him, Blaise Alexander Zabini, to the place of his education and further send him into a downward spiral of self-inflicted pain. Just bloody _wonderful_. He sat in the compartment alone as his thoughts swirled as mystic phantoms along the mental freeway and neither held shape or form, just existed. Sometimes he'd watch them drift into distance or materialize into that weeping face that had nearly killed him the summer before. What made him like this? What happened to him that made him so... _empty?_ What else? He fell in love.

A few years ago, he could've cared less whether or not he was on a train or a carriage, as long as he got away from that place he called home. Now it all seemed to have no meaning... what happened to him?

Oh... Right... _She _happened... The girl, woman, that haunts his dreams and makes his blood rush, only until the stab of guilt and pain tore those feeling out of him with a jagged knife called regret... Regret of what he could've-should've-said... What he couldn't say... What he would never think...

_Well maybe not never think,_ he thought wryly.

He was thinking it right now... Maybe admit to himself these feeling that cause these thoughts.

_It's all **her** fault, ever since **she** walked into my life, it's never been the same..._

His mind was distorted, common sense tossed in the open breeze.

He supposed this is what Noemi called his _just desserts._

Maybe we should work our way from the beginning, while he stares off into space blabbing like a lethargic twit.

Mind you if you continue with this tale, there is one thing you must know... He holds no ill-will towards _him_, nor the way things turned out. He is completely sane and a Slytherin who begged the Sorting Hat to place him there... You'll find out why.

It all goes back to his Third Year of Hogwartts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...

* * *

''Have a safe trip, Blaise!''

He did not reply to his mother's feigned feelings. His mother was not a feeling woman, she was now on her tenth husband, with only his father left alive. The media of the wizarding world seemed to forget this fact and saw only her French features and devilish charm. His new stepfather stood at her side with three of his sisters, all of whom worked for the ministry in some capacity or another whether an accountant, a secretary, a _call girl_. He never really knew, nor cared, what they actually did. They were just people that tormented him and made everyday he was home a little bit more painful.

''Yes yes mother we now he's going to school, it happens every year. Nothing changes.''

''The little whelp, I'm tired of seeing him. Aren't you going to grow anytime soon?''

''He's going to stay that way forever, wouldn't that be interesting if Blaise grew up to be gay? I mean with a name like Blaise, it'll be pretty obvious-''

Isabelle, Elaine and Gabriel, it happened every time he went off to school. Out of some deluded idea that he wanted them there, his mother would force the trio to take an afternoon off from their whoring and come wish their little brother goodbye. While he kept his solitude and say nothing baring their abuse as he always had, he counted down the ways to make them suffer and the seconds to his departure.

''Leave _Topolino_ alone, he's suffered enough living with you three all his life, no need to screw up his return to school.''

It was September 1st the first day of school and the last day he would see them before his birthday. Since they usually forgot, they lumped his return to school day in with his birthday. To them, September 1st was his birthday, on records his birthday was November the 13th, but he would never tell anyone that. No, no one needed to know. So long as everyone thought it was th 1st of September, he could spend his birthday in peace. It was nothing to be celebrated really. His mother obviously felt that her son was worthless. Noemi hugged him tightly slipping a book into my hands.

''You have fun now alright?'' He nodded hugging her back. Noemi... she was the cornerstone of sanity and the only person he could really talk to. Grandma Zabini wasn't exactly the most lively person but she was one of the most caring, but Noemi actually _listened._ He found the value of that in a house of women that were indifferent to his existence very early on in life.

''Noemi, will you be here when school ends?''

''Maybe... we'll see.'' She kissed my forehead and ruffled my hair as he boarded the train.

''Don't go breaking hearts now Blaise!'' She yelled after me, he almost laughed. His sister was so weird sometimes but he loved her all the same.

He found his way to a compartment and opened the present from Noemi, the card read:

_Cara Topolino,_

_I am giving you this book as an early birthday present since I don't own an owl, don't intend to buy one, and you could probably use it to stave off your boredom when you're done with work. __I know it's been awhile since I've seen you, but I've finally gotten a chance to get off work and bid you farewell when you go off to school. Nice surprise huh? Compared to Isabelle, Gabriel and Elaine every year, with Madre to add to that, I feel sorry for you._

_In any case, how does it feel to almost be turning thirteen huh? Exiting right? You're about to start going through changes and I can't wait to see how you handle yourself as a man. Please try to make a friend this year, I am no witch but there's gotta be someone you can relate to while you're there. It can't be all that bad._

_Ignore Draco, I realize it's hard since you're in Slytherin with him ( and don't think I don't know why, I will scold you for that later) but there's gotta be someone in that school worth talking to._

_Ti amo,_

_Noemi._

**_P.S._** _I want some good news at Christmas._

Out of that entire letter, all he got was that she would be home for would probably be the best homecoming he would get in awhile. With his father still off in where ever he was whoring himself as he always does, the only people could ever look forward to seeing when he returned home for Christmas were his mother and bunch of people he didn't know, among whom would always be his next stepfather. It would be even better if it was just the people that actually cared about him, for once. A.K.A, himself , Grandma Zabini and Noemi. That would top any present he could have ever get from his sisters, his mother and the money Massimo and his stepfather gave him every year...

''Uhm excuse me...'' He looked up and couldn't look away.

_La ragazza Bella..._

''Can I share the compartment with you? Everywhere else is full.''

She had sea-like aquamarine eyes with the dust of stars in them accompanied with fine features and a dark mass of curls held out of her face by a blue had a small smile and the blush on her cheeks told him she was nervous.

''Sure...'' He said, she smiled at him and came in closing the doors behind her. He did not know what year she was, but judging by her lack of house colors she had to be a first year.

''I'm Elena, what's your name?'' She said obviously not confident, her voice was far too timid and soft he almost missed her speaking, and _oh _how he would have regretted that.

Her voice was warm and gentle, like velvet and honey over his senses.

''Blaise. Blaise Zabini... Are you a first year?''

''Oh, no. I'm a third year, I transfered here when we moved.''

_Wizarding schools have transfers? _He'd never heard of it happened but with the wizarding world _anything_ was possible.

''I see...What house are you in?''

''Raven Claw, but I haven't gotten my robes yet...''

He nodded and looked out the window again, looking at her made his heart beat faster and he vaguely wondered if he was getting sick. It was strange...She made him feel like flying and they'd just met. That wasn't natural...

_Maybe she's part veela.._. That would have definitely explained the symptoms.

''What's your last name?''He asked slightly curious. There were only a hand full of families that he knew for sure had Veela blood.

''Valentin, Why do you ask?''She said and sighed, ''I know. I know, what yo're going to say. 'You're named after one of the most backwards holidays in the world' yes I know. I've come to terms with it.''

''Actually, I just wondered if I'd met you before.''

''Oh. Sorry, but I get the ''Valentin Valentine'' this all the time and it urks me to no end.'' I raised and eyebrow, she was certainly not the meek mouse I tok her for on sight. Maybe it was just because she's shy.

''Is your birthday Valentine's Day?''

''No...thank goodness.'' She said and joined him in looking out the window. It was raining, not surprising for England, it was a very rainy country.

''I can't believe this...it's always raining...''

He was going to agree with her when suddenly the room went cold. As if there would never be a spark of happiness ever again...

_A Dementor_... he realized turning towards the door and leaning back against the wall. He had some pretty terrible memories but he'd read a lot over the summer and learned charms to prevent things like this from happening. After all, who knew when his mother would decide to spice up her love life and date a _Death Eater_.

''Elena?'' She was frozen in place as the door opened and the ghostly figure turned looking at her...He thought it would've gone after him first, but it was after her. She shivered slightly as it came towards her, she was panicking looking for her wand. What did she expect to do against a dementor as the dementor came at her and he saw her body shake. She fumbled with her wand before she right it in her hand.

''Expecto Patronum!'' She said her wand sent out a glowing shield of thin wisps of light, a patronum, and the dementor flew out the door the door closed and the entire room returned to normal...

_Who was she?_...

''Are you okay?'' He asked as she gained her breathe. He saw her falling before her eyes closed and she collapsed onto him. In a particularly awkward position, he blushed and pushed her back onto her side of the compartment and laying her out across the bench.

This mysterious girl would change his life forever.


	2. Getting To Know Her:Hooked

_Who I was before we met  
Stays hidden inside my chest  
Within these memories of you and me  
My empty heart falls asleep.  
_

Now keep in mind that he bears no ill will towards _him_, nor the way things turned out, but you may never believe me. I don't even think he believes it.

I'll stop talking and get on with it. They soon learned that they had identical classes and fate wanted very much for them to get along...

Good old Fate.

* * *

''Buon Giorno!'' Someone said as he was walking towards his table.

He turned to look over his shoulder. It was Elena. Watching her in the early morning light, he couldn't but feel warmer and smile a little.

''Good morning.'' He replied calmly.

''What's wrong?'' She asked looking at him with a probing eye.

''Nothing...why do you ask?''

''You just-''

''Well, Well Zabini, got a girlfriend now?''

He turned to see Draco Malfoy.

_Great, as if my day could get that much better, _he groaned inwardly.

There was Pansy, Crabbe and Goyle behind him and he swore that if there was ever a pair of bumbling buffoons, more perfect for each other, the world would crumble into dust from their stupidity. There were never to more stuck up people meant to be together than Pansy and Draco and all four of them had decided to grace him with their presence.

_Great._

''Oh and she's a Ravenclaw...''

''Say Ravenclaw, do you know what two plus two is?'' Pansy asked.

Crabbe and Goyle started counting on their fingers as Elena laughed at Pansy. He knew this would get ugly fast if Pansy didn't catch the first few hints Elena gave her. He'd learned quickly that as kind as Elena could be, as gracious as she was, she did have a finite amount of patience for people that couldn't take a hint. She was never nasty, or vicious when she decided to end the conversation, she was just very to the point and _witty_.

''If that was a test of my intelligence, you surely under estimate me.''

_Strike one..._ he thought.

''The little mouse speaks. What's your name? I haven't seen you around.''

''Elena. Elena Valentin.'' She replied, "Nice to meet you."

He could tell that she was lying through her teeth and Elena could feel the meter of how much stupidity she could take in one sitting rising exponentially as Pansy continued to speak.

''What like the holiday?'' She asked looking Elena up and down. He saw the anger in her eyes and her hair turn red.

_First Expecto Patronum and now she's a metamorphmagus...that had to be Strike Two._

He watched her calm down and hung his head as Pansy continued to talk. There was no way to save here now, not that he'd planned on it before. It was just that it made his life so much easier when the idiot quartet left him alone and being that he was in Slytherin, he would have to deal with the majority of the backlash from this encounter.

_I should have just let the Sorting Hat put me in Ravenclaw..._

But then, he would have had a whole world of trouble to deal with when he went home. No, he'd much rather deal with petty school drama than a full out war with his family. The entire Zabini family had been in Slytherin, aids to the Dark Lord and all and his father, whenever he _did_ see him never let him forget it. If he didn't know better, and if he didn't know that Grandma Zabini had final say as matriarch of the family, his uncle or some other family member would be vying for himi to join up within the next few years while talk of the Dark Lord was still around.

''You're a freak.'' Pansy said, ''And you're ugly on top of that.''

''I'd rather be a freak than an uneducated, spoiled, selfish, blabbering idiot that degrades the entire species of women simply by breathing.''

He blinked. Pansy blinked and gawked at her Elena was harsh when she wanted to be and he sensed that the little meter that told her that she was surrounded by too many people that would cause her stress and annoyance had just hit the red zone.

''Who are you calling an idiot?'' Pansy asked.

''Oh, I'm _sorry_," she started, bowing slightly with a grand gesture. "W_rong term_, what I meant to say was a babbling buffoon who's probably never learned to read since the day she was born.''

Blaise would've said something if Pansy had not swung at her. He watched Elena's movements with amazement. She dove under Pansy's arm grabbed in and tripped her and flung her over her shoulder. She was in a stand that resembled karate before Pansy even hit the ground.

''What are you crazy?'' Pansy asked sitting up. Draco and his two stooges stared at Elena in awe and a little bit of fear.

_The sniveling twits_, Blaise thought. _If you would have just left us alone, this wouldn't have happened. Now Elena's in fight mode and I can't stop her._

He shrugged and reached for the orange juice and poured himself a cup.

''What in bloody hell are you?'' Pansy screeched.

''I'm a second degree black belt. And I do have the ability to kill you, without a wand.'' She said.

Draco and the others ran towards the other side of the table as the Golden Trio walked towards them. They had obviously seen the display.

''That was amazing. Who are you? I've never seen you around here before.'' The red haired one.

_Weasley,_ he was pretty sure. Harry, Hermione and Weasley looked at him with a deep set in glare.

''Why are you hanging out with a Slytherin?''Harry asked glaring at Blaise.

He glared back unable to help himself. He hated it when Griffyndors do that. Just because he was in a rival house, Slytherin in this case, they lumped the entire house together as if students are defined by house and not the other way around. Just because he asked to be in Slytherin, did not mean he was _Slytherin_.

''What's wrong with hanging out with Slytherins?'' She asked the completely innocent.

Elena was going to be tainted by their biased views of his house and felt a slow decline into despair as he felt their slowly budding friendship begin to slip away.

''Their snakes and they can't be trusted. Trust me! Slytherins wouldn't think twice about slitting their best friend's throat for their precious Lord.'' Weasley said.

Elena gasped and almost slapped him but she stopped herself.

''Don't ever say that again. Just because someone is in a house, that house isn't who they are. Just like you, even though you're a Gryffindor, you may not be courageous or brave. And not all Slytherins are like that, just like all people aren't like that.'' She said; they all looked at Blaise as if he was supposed to say something. And he did.

''But he's friends with Malfoy...'' Weasley said.

''Don't lump me in with that idiot.'' He said crossing my arms probably more angry than Elena was.

Lumping him in with the house name of _Slytherin_, and some of the worst criminals in the history of magic: fine, but lumping him in with that sniveling git _Malfoy? _Unforgivable, it was the principle of the thing.

''Malfoy seems to let everyone know that he's the top of the Slytherin chain when really we all pretend so he will leave us alone and we can go on about our day to day life.'' He told them, setting the record straight for just about the entire Slytherin house. They looked at him disbelieving.

''Great," Elena cheered. "Now that we've got all of this cleared up. How about we eat breakfast together?''

''That's not exactly how it works... each house eats with their house.''

''That's no fun...'' She said softly.

Blaise gazed at her as if she was crazy.

''That's okay.'' She said thoughtfully and smiled. ''Blaise and I have all the same classes and I'm pretty sure you guys have classes with us too. By the way what is your name?'' They looked at her and laughed.

''You must be the new student. I'm Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley.'' Harry said.

''Well, I'm Elena Valentin.''

Blaise felt that they would begin some type of friendship without him and he would be left alone again. He didn't mind being alone, it hurt a lot less that way. Occurences like this was just another reason he didn't have any _real_ friends...

But she smiled at him as if he actually mattered. No one had ever done that except Noemi. Everyone else had always seen him as a quiet little speck, the last name on everyone's list: barely there, unnoticeable, and easily forgotten.

''By the way Blaise,'' She said with a smile,'' I would rather like it if my _powers_ be kept under wraps. I'm trying to control it but sometimes it doesn't work out the way I plan. So,please don't say anything about it...''

He blinked.

_Was she trusting me? A Slytherin, with a secret? Was she mad?_

He had the perfect ammunition to place myself in the Slytherin mind as a true Slytherin...and would never use it. He nodded and gave his word that he would tell no one.

* * *

Without saying much, it was pretty obvious that he was a little new to this friendship thing. But that never changed the way they acted around each other. She trusted him, just as much as he trusted her. Sometimes they snuck up onto the observatory or in the Greenhouse and talked. Heart to Heart, swapping secrets and connecting over the darkest and deepest of their feeling. Neither of them could explain why, but it happened. Words rolled out of their mouths like water over a fall. Things he had never even told Noemi about came flowing out of his mouth before he could stop himself and think.

* * *

''So Blaise... when's your birthday?'' She asked suddenly as they sat in the Room of Requirements in the grotto they'd discovered as a secret place between the two of them. They'd made it their special hangout after they had a hard day and needed solitude and company.

The air around them was clean and fresh, the trees stretched as high as the sky and clouded the ceiling of stars and the full moon that shone down on her alone and left Blaise in darkness. He could help but think it fit them well. Where she was social and full of light he stuck to the corners of the room and slid and out of rooms like a shadow. He was never one for attention, he supposed that was because he never got much of it. The silver light played in her ebony curls and made it seem like a gothic's dream and he was lost in it for awhile and happy for it.

''November 13th.''

''So...you're birthday is the during the school year? That's great!"

"I always get gifts on the first of September," he said blankly.

"But why?"

"Because no one ever remembers that the day I go back to school is nowhere near my birthday...except for Noemi and my grandmother."

"That's...terrible," she said sadly.

''Yes well...there's nothing much I can do about that...''

''DO you at least get any good presents?'' She asked. "You know, something better than school supplies?"

''Yeah. Every year I get 400 Galleons from my stepfather and my Father, a gift from my grandmother, a gift from Noemi and usually gift certificates from my other three sisters and my mother.''

''Oh...that's so sad...'' She said, was it the way he'd said it?

It wasn't that the gifts were ever particularly bad. His grandmother always sent him Italian food that he longed for during the school year. He'd always bring a stash with him but had to restock at Christmas break. Especially _sweets_, he really did have such a sweet tooth. That was something even Elena had not discovered yet. He'd kept his sweets addiction a secret, even from his roommate. When they went to Hogsmeade, he'd steal away from whatever group he'd been adopted by and get chocolate enough to last him for a while. He'd never gone to Hogsmeade with Elena though, so she didn't know.

''What is?'' He asked sitting up to look at her.

''You never talk about your family much," she pointed out. "I take it your three sisters are...aren't exactly what you call... supportive.''

''Hm..."

He should have expected her to notice, she was very observant even without her extra powers. When he found out that she had a bit of telepathy, the same kind Muggles talked about as a super power, he was surprised and kept in mind to keep his more secret thoughts under wraps. It explained how observant she was of other people emotions and how short of a fuse she'd had sometimes. Who wouldn't be easily angered when everyone else's thoughts came barreling into their minds?

She had a charm to keep it in check, a ring that she usually wore, but when she forgot it or lost it one day, he'd realized it when she was quoting things that only he'd known back to him and not realized that he hadn't said it out loud. It had been a very interesting experience after realizing that she wasn't joking or just a really good guesser. They'd spent almost three hours searching the castle for that ring and found it crushed underneath the Grand Hall door. She'd threaded through a chain and wore it as a necklace though it didn't work all the time or as well as it had when it wasn't crushed. She'd have to home and get a new one.

''I mean...the way you speak of your family it's almost as if...you're alone.'' She said softly and looked at him, the silver light making her eyes glow in the darkness.

''I am...''

''What?''

''The only people that care about me are my Grandmother and Noemi, my other sister. Everyone else just...seems me as unimportant or that after thought of an obligation...''

She stayed silent as he continued on. He did't know why he was telling her this, but he couldn't stop. He just didn't want to, it felt so relieving to finally talk to someone about all the insanity he lived with every day of his life.

''My mother has never said even once that she loves me. It's always been Gabriel, Elaine and Isabelle. And those three think I'm a useless waste of space, hardly worth noticing, they wouldn't even remember I existed outside of their perfect world of thievery and whoring around. My mother has had ten husbands within the last thirteen years, she's on her eleventh and only one of the thirteen are alive. My stepfather seems to like torturing me to no end...''

He knew he was stepping into dangerous, forbidden ground when he felt the tears spill over and down his cheeks and his body started to tremble. He'd kept it all pent up and pressed down underneath all the sarcasm and nonchalance that it was overflowing now and he couldn't stop it, no matter how much he wanted to.

''His favorite weapon seems to be the whip as of late, my father... I haven't seen my father in four years. He's always been somewhere whoring around, and he thinks he can buy my affection like he did my mother. No one listens to me... no one even makes the attempt to... even acknowledge I'm _alive_ half the time and the other half it's barely a glance-'' He stopped, feeling that it was too much.

His head began to hurt like it always did and he felt a sudden distance in his mind as his vision zoned out like slipping into a trance.

_Something warm...really warm...it smells like flowers...sakura..._ He felt something wet dripping onto his cheek through the complete and absolute protection of the darkness.

''Oh Blaise...Benissmo...''She said softly.

Her tears falling on his face as she embraced me gently, he realized that she was crying- crying for him. Without thinking, he wrapped his arms around her and moved closer to her warmth. Blaise had never felt so alive before that moment. It was then realized that he was hooked.


	3. Finding What He Wanted

_This is the truth of my love for you_  
_How could you have seen_  
_Those fading glances_  
_Those longing stares_  
_When you were turned away and staring right at me_  
_Trapped in your own despair..._

The year began to pass quickly, and by the way it was now early December... You can imagine how ecstatic Blaise was with the impending promise of seeing Noemi again. Elena found out about his secret sweets addiction, as well as his growing coffee dependence, and got him chocolate flavored coffee to suit both his cravings. He could have kissed her, but he didn't. They were still friends after all.

* * *

''It's snowing!'' She exclaimed for at least the third time in a half hour as the pair trudged across the fallen snow.

She looked like a fluffy teddy bear in her coat, with spirals for hair and a bear eared hat to keep out the cold. He followed along in a cloak covered in warming charms. Why she didn't just use a warming charm he'd never understand.

''Yes, Elena, it's snowing...''

''Can you believe it's almost over?''

''What?'' He asked sitting down on the bench watching her stare up at the sky with the hopelessness of a lost puppy staring up at a young girl that took him home.

It was then he addressed the possibility that he was already head over heels for her.

''This year... It's almost Christmas.'' She said softly lifting her hands to the sky and spinning.

Over the time they'd known each other, he realized that Elena had affection for falling things _especially_ rain and snow. It had been a calm day with a dreary sky and he'd found her with hands pressed against the cool stone about ten minutes after classes had ended for the day. While everyone else was scurrying for cover from the oncoming storm, she stood there looking excitedly up at the sky. It began to ran and she hopped over the railing of the corridor to run outside in the courtyard and run around in the rain. When she spotted him, she asked him to join her. He placed his books down with hers and was outside with her before he'd had a chance to rethink the idea. They stayed outside for at least an hour before it was almost time for dinner and walked back into the dry corridor. She thanked him then and he told her that he'd always run in the rain with her.

It had to be one of his favorite memories of their time together.

''You're going to get dizzy again.'' He chided.

She did indeed and wobbled on her feet as though she was drunk. Blaise caught her before she hit the ground and smiled down at her hoping that now of all times he hadn't learned to blush as she looked up at him with swimming eyes.

''Good...catch. I'm dizzy.''

''I told you.'' He said shaking his head and helping her onto her feet.

It was almost time for dinner. Within the next week they would be back on the train to go home for winter break. Elena said that she would be going home as well, so at least he'd have some company while they were on the train. If he was lucky, by some strange chance, he would a chance to see her over break instead of giving her a gift when they were on the train ride back to Hogwarts.

"Come on it's almost time for dinner..."

She nodded and pushed him over into the snow. She laughed at his snow covered form on the ground and it was sound that he wished would never stop, even as he brushed the snow from his riotous curls and glared up at her.

''Tag you're it!'' She said laughing as she ran up the hill.

He shook his head, standing and racing after her. If only this feeling would last...

Blaise caught her eventually and tickled her until she gave in. They pulled off their coats and headed down for dinner. They separated to head to their own tables reluctantly. Throughout dinner, he stared at her across the tables watching her, the people around her, and drifting into and out of his own thoughts. She had adjusted well into her house and was the life of the Ravenclaw table, which had normally been studious and quiet. She was talking to the Griffyndors too by leaning towards the table from her seat. Elena was one to make friends with everyone, he was almost sure she didn't have any real enemies.

''Well Well Well, its Blaise. Where have you been?''

_Does he insist on talking to me because he's an idiot and doesn't understand sarcasm and disdain very well or is he deliberately pissing me off? _

It was a question he asked myself often as Crabbe and Goyle decided that the seats next to me were theirs and sat down, squishing Blaise between them. He wondered if they were born that big or _bred_ that large. He sighed and chocked it up to another day in the Slytherin House and looked up at Draco. He and Blaise were about the same size but with Crabbe and Goyle around to follow him like minions, size nor skill were things he concerned himself with.

Blaise swore one day to tear that stupid grin of his face, magic or no.

''Is there a reason you feel like conversing with me this night, or are you just bored?''

''Don't flatter yourself Zabini;" he sneered. "Of course you serve a purpose to me at the moment. I can see you've been hanging out with that Elena girl right?''

He immediately tensed finding it impossible not to and looked up very slowly to look at the sniveling weasel.

''Yes...what about it.''

''I want you to put in a good word for me with her.'' He raised an eyebrow, was he serious?

Blaise chuckled a bit before it errupted into a full scale laugh. He couldn't stop. Draco Malfoy wanted _him_, Elena's best friend, to put in a good word for the sniveling weasel that had pissed her off on more than one occasion? He wondered exactly if whatever sense of superiority Draco felt he had by hanging around the Tweedle Dee and "I forgot my name" gave him was worth catching their lack of intelligence. When he finally got a reign in on his laughter and his abs stopped hurting he regarded Malfoy who still looked as serious and demanding as he had been since he sat down.

He wasn't joking.

''Are you serious Malfoy? Surely you must understand what the words 'abhor, detest and loathe' mean.'' His face wrinkled in annoyance.

''Look Zabini, unless you want your life to be a living hell... you'll do as I say.''

''So now you're threatening me?" Blaise asked, amused. Didn't he know that the way to get to a girl was through her friends? He enjoyed the bit of power he had over Malfoy and the boy's obvious obliviousness to the lack of power Malfoy's threats had on him.

"Let's face it Malfoy, if you hurt me... your plot to get close to Elena will never work. I'm her best friend and confidant remember?''

He felt another fit of laughter coming on at his anger as he continued to eat in silence, he took the seat in front of Blaise and glared at him across the table.

''You know Blaise...there are bad things that happen to people that don't follow a Malfoy's wishes...'' He said almost threateningly.

''Oh...like punching Malfoy's in the face because they talk too much... now that I think about it...how was Granger's fist in your face? How main brain cells did she knock out?''

His face scrunched more in anger and he and his two goons walked away

_Why do they insist on trying me?_

He looked over at Elena who had a worried look on her face and gave her a smirk and thumbs up to show he was okay. But the look never dissipated and her hair changed to a dark blue. Her hair was really kind of like a mood ring and he wanted to tell her that there was nothing to be worried about. He grinned at her and continued to eat. As good as it made her feel that Blaise was not hurt by the short conversation, she couldn't shake off her instincts. For just a moment she took off the charm and focused searching for the thoughts she knew would be there.

After Dinner, Blaise walked along the corridor alone towards the dungeons were the Slytherin dorms were. He was somewhat tired but before he'd reached the third corridor from the dungeons. He felt someone was behind him lurking in the darkness behind him. He drew his wand and swallowed hard though he didn't change his pace and kept walking.

''I told you, you'll pay Zabini.''

Something swung at his head and he collapsed to the ground before it made contact but was not fast enough to dodge the large foot colliding hard with his stomach probably breaking a few ribs. He cried out. Someone grabbed him by his hair and pulled him up, someone's wand in his face lit with a greenish glow.

He looked into the eyes of Draco Malfoy as he kneeled in front of him. His pointy nose near Blaise's.

''Well well Blaise...you've got yourself in quite a fix haven't you... You'll think twice about questioning me from now on won't you?''

Blaise smirked and spat in his face, he growled with a devilish gleam in his eyes ready to curse him to hell. But Blaise heard soft footsteps at the end of the hallway and smiled as Draco wiped his face.

''Crabbe, Goyle, you know what to do.'' They cracked their knuckles.

''_Expelliarmus!_'' They heard from the end of the hallway sending Draco flying off his feet.

He'd never been so relieved to hear that spell they'd practiced over and over again in class.

''_Petrificus Totalus! Stupefy!_''

All these spells came from the darkness as running footsteps and a billowing cloak came nearer to him. Someone grabbed his arm and helped Blaise up as Draco sat up.

''_Stupefy._'' Blaise heard her whisper and Draco was knocked out.

They made it to the door of the Slytherin dorms as people started filing in. She let him go resting against the wall to catch their breath.

''Blaise are you okay?'' She asked softly.

''That was pretty smart for you Elena...thanks.''

''I said are you okay?''She asked as he slid down the wall griping his stomach.

He pushed away her worried hands and huffed.

"It's nothing...one of them kicked me is all.''

It wasn't just that she knew that. His head was pounding and his entire right side throbbed with pain. She could see that though he would never admit it.

''Let me see...''She whispered and placed a gentle hand to his side.

''You should be getting back to your common room,'' he said pushing her hands away.

He pushed her away but she pushed his hands away and pressed a gentle hand into his side and yelped and hissed in pain falling back against the wall unable to protest anymore.

''I can handle myself...it doesn't seem broken. Here'' She performed some type of healing charm.

Who was she? He felt so much better and he knew that the charm was at least two years ahead of them if not three.

''Anything else?''She asked worriedly.

He laughed in spite of the pain in his hand. No one had ever worried so much about him and it made him feel warm and wanted. He supposed he would have to get used to the almost unnerving feeling coursing through him.

''Nothing but a head ache... Thanks...''She nodded and helped Blaise on to his feet.

''Be careful.'' She said as he headed into the common room after promising her that he would.

Her running footsteps down the hall echoed down the hall even after the entrance went closed behind him. Elena had seriously just saved him...

_Elena..._

He smiled a little at the thoughts of her that began to fill his thoughts as he headed down the corridor. They were coming so fast and so numerous he almost feared that they would overflow out of his ears. The only thing on his mind that night was Elena. Her smile, her laugh...just her... And he slept so peacefully, at more peace asleep then when he was awake, comforted by the thought of her worrying about him.

The world tended to fall apart when Blaise was awake but turned to nightmare as he slept, but not tonight. Elena kept his fear at bay and the monsters under the bed-out of thought and out of mind. He fell asleep within minutes and didn't wake up until late the next day. That had to have been the best sleep he'd gotten in years. He got out of bed and the ache in his head and been transferred to his stomach. He was _starving_ and wondered if brush ins with danger burned calories like exercise. After showering and dressing in his muggle clothing, he headed down to get food before the trip to Hogsmeade.

''All students that have permission slips from their parents may go to the village. Please exhibit a behavior fitting of Hogwarts.'' McGonagall said as he reached outdoors.

He had a permission slip, but he really did not want to go. He was so tempted to avoid the whole ordeal of being outside of castle walls and near Malfoy after the night before. The only thing about Hogsmeade that seemed worth it was the idea of getting chocolate but even then it didn't seem worth it. He really did want to try the whole stress free lifestyle his sister lead. She always looked so happy.

All these thoughts dissolved when he saw Elena in muggle clothing. She wore a simple pair of jeans a jean jacket and a black shirt with long sleeves over her palms. She came towards him with her messenger bag with a smile like the sun.

''Hey Blaise...ready to go? Are you feeling any better?'' He smiled at her for the first time in what felt like forever, but really hadn't been more than a day.

''Yeah I'm fine.''

They handed in the slips and continued into the village. The entire day was full of fun and chocolate much to Blaise's joy and they ended up sipping butter beer and sitting at the lake in the village. The lake was frozen over but glimmering in the beautiful late day sun.

''So Elena...what are your plans once you get out of this place?'' Blaise asked gazing out over the frozen lake. She was looking out too and finished her butter beer moments later.

''I don't have much of a choice...''

''What?'' Blaise asked staring at her.

Her eyes filled with wary, and unhappiness. Her eyes a dark grey and her hair a demented blue, he knew something was wrong. He'd never seen that happen and the colors didn't fit the Elena he'd grown to love and rely on.

''My future has already been decided by my mother... She's marrying me off to some pure blood heir when I turn seventeen. I will never have a job, nor afford my own living, nor a freedom of will. I'll be chained to this man for the rest of my life. My fate ...is his decision...'' She said softly, rising to stare out and venture out onto the ice, changing her boots to ice skates to glide across the thick ice.

He did the same and joined her on the ice skating with her as her eyes stared out into the slowly passing distance. They stayed that way for a while and he waited until she stopped to speak. Of course, no wonder she looked so unhappy. There had been something bothering her since they came back for the year but he hadn't asked figuring she would tell him when she was ready, but now he knew.

''You never know Elena...this guy you speak of...could be a good guy.''

''Or a Death Eater," she quipped.

''He could be me.'' She laughed at this. ''I'm serious.''

Blaise was after all, for all his familial issues, a pure blood wizard of one of the most prominent families in the wizarding world. If there was a family that would be among her mother's choices, his would be one so there was a chance that what he was saying was true, but she knew otherwise. While she knew the history and the politics, she knew her mother paid no attention and had always wanted to be a part of one particular. She'd wished that her father was still around to stave off the day and make a logical decision or that her brother hadn't forgotten the family name. Her brother ran away about a year before she started her first year on the premise that their mother was a tyrant bent on using her children to her own ends. He was right, but Elena was still too young to be taken a long. He promised he'd find their father and come back before it was too late, he and his wife, but it'd been years since that promise was made and time was running out.

''Yeah, _right_ Blaise," she said. "Let's get serious. This isn't some fairytale where your best friend saves you... This is the pureblood family rules we're talking about. With my luck it'll be Malfoy and I'll be in Azkaban within a week.''

He laughed knowing it was probably true. Elena was a powerful witch and with little trouble at all she could probably outsmart even Hermione Granger but where Hermione was all about proving that she belonged through her intelligence, Elena was more reserved about it. She did answer questions, it was when she was called. She didn't tell anyone her grades ever, even Blaise had to steal her essays to see the plainly marked "O" on the top, even in Potions.

''No seriously... what if it was me?''

''What if it was? I'll humor you.'' She said with a sly smile in her eyes.

''Well...I don't know. You would be free to do what you wanted. I would never forbid you a job... you'd be free to go wherever you wanted. And I would of course be faithful... it's not like it would be completely bad... Besides we could always get a divorce.''

She smiled a sad smile as he took her hands and skated backwards guiding her around the lake in circles.

''You're a nice guy Blaise... but you and I both know that's not how it works...'' She said lifting her eyes to the sky and stopping them. '' It does sound nice though.''

They skated back to the edge and laid out on the bank to stare up at the passing clouds. He smiled at her.

''You never know...things happen Elena.'' He whispered so that she would not hear him.

The gears in his head were already turning. There was no way that he would get her attention as more than a friend if he didn't challenge her. If he didn't act as if he was just a friend then maybe she would see him the way he wanted her to. There was only one problem: he didn't know how to do that.

_Oh geez Blaise...let's get serious, you can't change your attitude within a week, it'd take a serious physical change first and then maybe...maybe Noemi wouldn't mind beating the man into me. She would do a much better job than anyone else in the family._

He laughed at the irony and hit her with a snowball and scrambled across the ice to skate away from her. She hit him square in the back with a ball of snow and he chased her around the lake. She giggled and slipped into the lake pulling him down with her. As he stared at her flushed, laughing face and warm eyes. He knew something had to change before she was no longer the Elena he was in love with but combating some force outside herself and caved.


	4. More Like A Man

_Before we met._

_I was nothing at all_

_And now I feel my heart beating in my chest_

_I wondered now how my life would be_

_Without you beside me_

_Would I have stayed the way I was before_

_And fallen from the sky?_

_Or is it possible that you gave me wings_

_And afforded me a chance to fly?_

_Who was I before you?_

Thinking back on his fifth year, a lot of surprising things happened. Puberty, Noemi beating the crap out of him until he could hold his own...beating the snot out of his stepfather for saying something he shouldn't have... Fifth year was a year he would never forget. It may have been his most favorite year of the six he'd so far attended at Hogwarts.

_She was so beautiful..._ he thought staring out the window as the train began to move to carry him towards his seventh and final year of this torture.

* * *

''Come on Elena!'' Blaise heard Hermione say.

He turned towards the voice to here the clicking of her sandals against the pavement. At Kings Cross Station, no one would see him. Or at least they wouldn't recognize him. Hell, he woke up over the times several times not recognizing himself in the mirror.

He'd grown up, in more ways than one. His voice had gotten to be baritone and silky, unlike the alto he'd been before. Standing about six feet six inches, or according to his doctor's check up, 6'5 and 11 and one half, and one fine Italian Rogue. Of course, he didn't realize it until he'd gotten the giggle and the blushing looks in his direction as he walked the familiar streets of Italy and now at King's Cross station.

What happened to the boy they knew before? The one they ignored? He was gone and this new _Adonis _as his sister called him took the boy's place. He couldn't wait to see Elena's reaction to the change.

''Hey, have you seen Blaise? I can't seem to find him anywhere...'' Elena's voice was more sultry now.

He turned as she walked past him and his heart raced in his chest. She had grown up- _a lot_. Her body had filled out perfectly and she had gotten taller. Her legs now longer and muscularly toned, her skin tanned from the summer sun. She was an Italian amazon and even more beautiful than he remembered. Something inside him wanted to growl in content watching her walk on silky caramel legs.

_Delicious..._

_I guess Noemi was right... Talk about dirty thoughts..._

Noemi warned him of the several side effects of puberty and the only symptoms he'd seem to have were spontaneous growth spurts, deepened voice, and a heightened awareness of the other sex. She'd cursed him for his luck when they were going through pictures of her during her awkward summer transformation. He'd kissed her cheek and hugged her tightly saying that it was endearing...she threatened to maim him. It was a good experience.

''Someone looking for me?'' He asked softly.

She turned around swiftly regarding him with caution. Leaning against the platform pillar with a suave and dangerous grace, he looked at her. She tilted her head a little bit in confusion as she realized that he had been the one speaking to her. A part of her was gawking and quite possible drooling at the man leaning against the pillar, but the sane and sensible side looked him up and down, sizing him up in case she needed to defend herself. Over the summer, there had been more times than she wanted to recount that guys felt that because she looked a certain way that gave them the right to touch her. She'd expressly showed them the meaning of _look with your eyes not with your hands _by breaking limbs and tossing them into pools. Needless to say her mother was not pleased with her.

''I'm sorry, but who are you?'' She asked, Hermione came up beside her.

''Uhm, Elena, I think that's Blaise.''

The giant smirked down at her face that was bright red with confusion and embarrassment. It was going better than he imagined, and he'd had an entire summer to imagine her reaction.

''That can't be Blaise. Blaise is... Blaise isn't... He doesn't look like that.'' She said hurriedly.

''You should listen to her. You're not the only who grew up little Elena.'' Blaise whispered, something sadistic in him loved seeing her back away not in fear of him, but something akin to it.

He named the look on her face _wary confusion and awe _as her back hit the wall and she looked at him still leaning comfortably against the pillar and staring back at her with eyes bluer than she remembered and a hell of a lot more fiery. He decided that it was time to tease her actively and got off the pillar to stalk across the small space towards her. If she could think properly, without the prospect of Blaise being that _gorgeous_, she would have said he more floated than walked across the floor. Or prowled towards her like some jaguar in the jungle stalking his next meal... Meal? Yeah, the look in his eyes said something like _You look delicious_ and she was a little afraid of how she was reacting to it and how she'd managed to pin the look in his eyes.

Her palms were getting sweaty and her heart was confused, it thought she'd just run a marathon or played a really long game of soccer. Silly heart, she really wished it would come to its senses soon.

''You... you aren't Blaise. Blaise wouldn't...''

''My, you've grown up.'' He whispered in her ear as he leaned in to trap her against the pillar.

She trembled and gasped, some sadistic part of him liked to watch her squirm. Some sick part of her sort of enjoyed it.

''Bla-Blaise please...'' she said desperately.

''What's wrong?''

''You're too close.'' She whispered.

He looked down at her from head to toe. She looked like she was either shaking in fear or rage, but he knew it was neither._Anticipation _and not knowing what he was going to do next would kill her if he didn't do it with his advances. He smirked a little and watched the muscles in her throat work hard as she swallowed hard. She wouldn't have to wait long before she found out what he would do next.

''From your body's reaction. It seems as though I'm not close enough.'' he said slyly.

''Hey you two, we're in public!'' Hermione said.

He grinned at the girl who scolded them maybe in jealousy that he wasn't trapping her against the wall or amusement that Elena was so flustered. When he pulled her close into a hug, she yelped and slid down to her knees out of his arm, staring up at him as he smiled kindly. All the heat and fire in his eyes was replaced by that familiar smile and affection that she'd always seen in his arms. He turned to get on the train as she got to her feet after rejecting his assistance.

''You should hurry up we're about to leave.'' He said climbing on to the train and finding an empty compartment.

He knew after that moment that it would be a very... _fun _year. Maybe not for Elena, but it would be for him. He ended up alone in the compartment, much to his pleasure and dismay. He'd hoped but knew that she wouldn't come find him. Not after he'd so thoroughly embarrassed and terrorized her. He took comfort in the fact that Elena had a very small container, that leaked itself empty fairly quickly, that she kept her anger in. He'd pushed too hard, but he couldn't help himself. He was so enthralled with the way she stared back at him, the was she reacted, and the feeling of power that had washed over him that he couldn't stop. What had Noemi said about those male conquerer instincts?

_Oh yeah, that I should control them..._

Oops.

He shrugged it off and gazed out the window at the passing scenery. He didn't regret a single word of that conversation. She reacted better than he'd hoped to his new looks and charm, but he would never know how much of that was surprise rather than enchantment. He could never tell with Elena because he was so enchanted with her. She was like a nymph or something singing songs that he loved to hear with lips he wished to kiss but could never find. She was the only one that had ever made him rethink carefully made plans, and in this case completely abandon them all together. When he came to Hogwarts, there wasn't a single thought of love in his mind. If anything, he abhorred it and wanted nothing to do with it. Now he was playing mind games with the girl he'd fallen too deep in love with and may have even been out of his reach.

The telltale and familiar _ding_ of the bell on the trolley pulled him from his thoughts. Thoughts about how he'd managed to almost jump Elena at the train station could wait, chocolate was near.

"Anything from the trolley dear?"

He looked at the kind woman and stood pulling out money in exchange for chocolate. _Yum. _As if the day couldn't get any better.

"Yay candy!"

He looked over to see Elena standing there and almost choked. He school shirt was half unbuttoned showing off glimpses of skin around her neck and shoulders. Judging from the straps on her shoulders, he figured she was wearing something underneath it and judging from the view it was a very tight black tank top that hugged her curves tightly causing hell for his hormones. He swallowed down the overwhelming need to reach over the trolley and touch her and watched her with an affectionate gaze.

She lifted candy from the cart exchanging it for what Blaise knew to be far too much money. The older woman blushed at Elena's kindness and gave her more candy. Elena pouted at the gift but thanked her. When she finished the trade, she became of the eyes on her and looked up to meet blazing Zabini blue eyes. He wanted to kiss her so badly that he had to pinch himself from saying so. She blinked and waved at him with a goofy smile.

"Hi Blaise."

He smirked opening the wrapper and taking a bite leaning against the door frame looking at her, "Hi Elena."

"Elena stop flirting and bring us food!" Hermione yelled from down the hall.

"I'm coming... " She called back, "Come join us?" She asked.

He smiled and nodded following her down the hall towards the compartment the group occupied in. They looked up and gasped at the towering student beside their dear Elena that carried their candy.

"Who's he?" Harry asked and he shook his head.

_Will no one recognize me off the bat besides Hermione?_

"He's Blaise..." She said grinning at them.

_She's probably glad she wasn't the only one that didn't recognize me..._

Blaise took a seat and watched fondly as they talked for a while and Elena was buttoning up her shirt over the sleek tank top. Her clothes seemed to fit her better now as she shrugged her shoulder and adjusted the crisp white blouse.

"You're not going to change?" Hermione asked gesturing to Blaise still muggle attire. He shrugged.

"I'll get around to it...I change fast."

"How was your summer?" Elena asked tying her tie around her neck with expert efficiency.

"Mm... warm... I spent it in Italy..."

"Really now? You were at home?"

"My sister came home to see me... It wasn't exactly something I was going to pass up." She nodded understanding and clapped her hands as if remembering something before standing to climb up and dig through the pile of her bags to grab her own and reach own into it.

"What are you doing?" Hermione asked across from Blaise as she jumped down and held out a wrapped box to Blaise.

"Happy Birthday," she cheered and forced the rather large box into his hands. "I wanted to give it to you in November when your actual birthday is, but I figured that you could use it before then."

He blinked, " You... remembered?"

She smiled kindly at him urging him to take the gift, " Of course I did. Who else is going to remember it when you never do? I just couldn't wait until November, besides you know me... give it a week and I'll forget which month it is. Besides, I wrapped it myself! No magic required."

He laughed and took the gift, wanting to open it so badly it hurt as he stared down at the neatly wrapped wrapping paper. He'd almost never gotten a gift that he wanted to open that badly unless it was from Noemi. She always got him something that he actually wanted or needed. Blaise looked at her and realized everyone was staring at him.

"Uhm... dude," Ron started. "Open it."

He blinked and took to unwrapping the box with slightly trembling fingers. My heart was thudding in his chest like it thought he was running a race as he opened the box to reveal an onyx case in a familiar shape with his name emblazoned in shinning gold lettering. He undid the buckles on the case. Elena grinned as his eyes widened and looked up at her with surprise and wonder.

"How... did you get this?"

"I was right? Really?"

"What is it?"

The black ebony gleamed beautifully in the light and he traced the strings with his fingertips: a brand new violin. The particular model was almost impossible to come by and he wondered at what point had she discovered his love for them.

"You remembered."

"It's hard not to~... I had a chance and I couldn't resist." She said as he picked it up and turned it over to see the design engraved on the back.

Angel wings and spiraling with dark Gothic writing read _Blaise Zabini_. The name glimmered an opalescent Zabini blue. There was a familiar and warm energy coming from it that he'd never felt from the old violin by the same maker. This one was different in some way but he couldn't explain what it was. He looked up at her with shock and awe. It was already such an expensive violin but she'd had the man engrave it, he couldn't imagine the time and money she'd put into the gift and it warmed him greatly.

"It's wonderful..." he said. "But I can't accept such an expensive gift..."

"You don't like it?" She asked looking a little taken aback with his words.

"No," he said quickly. "I love it. It's beautiful, but I can't take this."

"How much did you pay for this?" Hermione asked seeing the mark of Aleksandr Ivanov's _Nebes Zvuki _ series on the neck of the violin. The mark was Apollo's staff and lyre with N.Z. emblazoned over it. There was no mistaking that mark.

"There's only ten or so made a year by this maker and they're grossly expensive."

"I didn't pay anything for it," she explained and that only earned more confusion. "Alek is my brother, he changed his name when he left the family. I went to visit him and stayed the summer. In exchange for helping him around the shop and keeping books while his wife was working, he taught me how to make them."

"You... made this?"

"He's your _brother_?"

"Yeah, you didn't think it was possible to get one made like that did you?" She asked and tilted her head, " I just hoped I tuned it correctly and holds up to your playing habits, I can't tell you how many strengthening charms I put on every component of it. After seeing what you did to the last one, I decided it was a better idea if I customized it a bit. He said that the violin you had been made for a performer as a performer's violin not for frequent play, that's why it fizzled out... That and your brat of a cousin decided to abuse the poor thing before giving it to you. It's technically not a real _Nebes Zvuki_ but I hope you're happy with it..."

He almost cried. It was eons better than a _Nebes Zvuki_ it was specially made for him by the woman he'd set his mind to win over. It was truly the only one of its kind and no one could attest a higher honor than the one she'd given him by handing over her first and only violin to him for the simple anniversary of him being in the world. Just for a moment, he felt like it really was a birth_day_ present instead of a birth_date. _He set it on his shoulder pulling out the onyx bow engraved as well and struck a key to hear the sound ring crisp through the air.

_Beautiful..._

"It's perfectly tuned..."He said dragging the bow across each string as the sounds reminded him of her voice. "It's so beautiful I'm almost afraid to play it."

"I'm glad you like it and you'd better play it." She scolded. "I learned about a thousand different types of wood strengthening charms, lost at least six layers of skin with the glue and that's only day one."

He laughed at her indignation and promised to play it often.

She grinned at me, " Good, now I can ask for my birthday gift, hm?"

"Anything," he said closing the violin case it came in.

"You have to write and play me a song okay?" He blinked and smiled at her setting her gift back in it's case and closing the lid on his lap.

"I'll do what I can," he promised

"Great!"

Hermione looked at them both and smirked. Blaise saw it but didn't comment as Elena seemed to be completely oblivious to it while Harry and Ron asked her if she had any chess set makers in her family too. He had a feeling that Hermione knew what he felt for Elena and some insight into Elena's feeling as well. He wanted to ask her in the least obvious way possible to take a trip down the hallway so that he could ask her what she knew. But Just as he was about to address her the door slid open and inwardly they all groaned.

_Goddamn Malfoy..._

He sneered down at the group with that same condescending look and turned his eyes onto Elena who glared at him. He smirked at her expression.

"Well if it isn't my fiancee."

The others gasped, but Blaise wanted to punch him in the throat and feel his larynx crush under his fist. Noemi had warned him about the testosterone levels in his blood that could drive him into fits of rage but he was more than ready to channel it on Malfoy.

"What the hell are you talking about Malfoy?" Harry asked glaring at him.

Elena stood and walked over him with a sickly sweet smile, " Oh Draco how nice to see you..."

He smirked and choked as she jammed her knee into his groin, stepped down on his instep and pushed him back into Crabbe and Goyle setting her hands on her hips with a triumphant grin.

"You will regret every moment since you asked for my hand... I hope you know that. And I... will never, ever, for-never-ever, EVER marry you. _Capito?_" She slid the door closed and turned back to them who stared at her in her outburst as Malfoy banged on the door and she ignored him.

"Now what were we talking about?"

"What's this about fiancee?" Ron asked before Blaise could speak.

He looked at her, but she wouldn't return the gaze. Something was _very_ wrong.

"Oh... Malfoy asked for my hand... and my mother said yes. But I said no and so now I'm going to make his life a living hell..."

Blaise's heart slowed for a moment as he heard the underlying meaning in her words. To everyone else it sounded like she had it under control, but he knew better. She was in danger.

* * *

_She was right..._

They got schedules the next day and he sighed at it all. Blaise dreamt of being an Aurora, something he was sure his father (not that he cared) would never condone. It was a very feasible goal since he performed amazingly in all of his classes as usual. However, this year required more than just good grades. It required a hell of an inexhaustible source of patience: he had all his classes with Malfoy.

"Hey Zabini, are you coming to my wedding?"

Blaise bit his lip, counted to three, imagined Draco's face rearranged, and turned around. Blaise stood towering over him by a good few inches and replied in the calm voice he always spoke in, "You mean if you live to your wedding right?"

"What's that supposed to mean-"

"Blaise!" He glanced to the left at her voice as Draco turned his head and looked at her.

"Ah it's my wifey... you'll be happy to-"

His voice was stuck in his wind pipe as her fist connected to his throat. If he was a lesser man, Blaise would have laughed.

"I think I like you better when you're choking..." Blaise said absentmindedly and turned to her with a smile, "Nice punch."

"I'm just warming up, come on let's get to class."

He followed her willingly glaring at every man that dared to look at her the wrong way. It didn't help that her skirt looked a little shorter because of her... _endowments_. If he were easily embarrassed by his own thoughts he may have blushed, but he didn't. In the non-sugar coated, politically correct reality, Elena had a really, really, _really_ nice ass but who's looking?

_Every guy including me..._

If only they didn't have a strict uniform, maybe the walk to class would be less painful or pleasurable, he wasn't really sure which it was yet. The shirt didn't help either that stretched across her... _ (ahem) _other endowments, making his head spin as we walked into class together and took a seat in the same row with Hermione and Harry.

"Hello, I didn't know we'd have this class together..."Hermione said greeting them.

"Aurora in training," He offered in explanation.

"Join the club."

_My fifth year of Potions... _

Joy.

With Snape sneering and waiting for his students to slip up so he could further exact a never ending vengeance on his students for crimes they didn't commit, it was enough to keep Blaise preoccupied from watching Elena. He never realized that the tiniest flick of hair over a shoulder could do so much internal damage to him. It just wasn't fair that after the incident at the train station she'd seemed less and less surprised by him and he became more and more enthralled with being beside her. He was beginning to wonder if she was doing it on purpose.

"Are you alright?" She asked looking up at him, breaking him from his spinning thoughts.

"Yeah... I'm fine..."

_Nope definitely not doing it on purpose..._

Definitely not.

In fact, Elena was so oblivious to her obvious effect on every male she came into contact with that it was turning out to be dangerous. Or rather it would be dangerous if Draco Malfoy had any other talent besides sneering and getting his ass handed to him. Blaise turned feeling some one's glare on his back and saw that worm Malfoy glaring across the room. He smirked deviously and turned back to Elena just as she called his name. She was pulling her hair back and up. He never thought he'd hate a style as much as he hated when she did that.

_It looks so much better down..._

"So we need to grind a snake's tooth and slice some lace wing flies to finish this up..."

"I'll grind. I'm sick of slicing."

He grinned at her after a moment and wiggled his eyebrows. She laughed at the pun as he set to work watching her with her robes rolled up and slicing away. He could hear his heart racing and he felt like it would fly out of his chest and over to her screaming "I LOVE YOU." He was comforted by the fact that his life was only wizardry not fantasy.

_At least, I hope so._

Working together, they finish right on time with a beautifully pure liquid in their shared cauldron. It looked like moonstone and they looked in surprise as the liquid began to shrink, shrink, shrink and harden until only a perfectly round stone was left at the bottom of the cauldron.

_Was that supposed to happen?_

He glanced over at Elena who looked just as confused as he was. No one else's had done that and Snape hadn't shone them a sample potion to compare it with. Snape marched over, probably to ridicule them and Elena gripped his hand tightly to whether the storm they were going to endure. He stopped and looked between the two and they could have sworn they heard a gasp when he looked inside.

"Well..." he said slowly, he looked more in pain at what he was going to say than he had in their entire time at Hogwartts. "As to be expected from a Slytherin... and a _Ravenclaw_ working together."

He reached into the pot to examine the stone that fit perfectly in his palm.

"A perfectly executed Polumus potion..." Elena blinked.

_Is Snape complementing us? _They thought and dared not look at each other until they left.

He set the stone down and they extinguished the fire putting away the extra materials and cleaning the workspace, it was lunch time and the moment they'd exited the room Elena was cheering.

"Did you hear that? He complimented us!" Elena gushed, she'd been trying to get a compliment out of Snape for four years and _finally _after she was sure they'd screwed up somewhere in between grinding up snake fangs and slicing frog tongues.

"Of course, it was all thanks to me." Blaise said with a mock smirk.

She stopped walking and laughed, "Yeah right as if..."

"Don't be so full of yourself Ravenclaw..." She pouted and swatted him in the chest.

"Meanie."

He laughed at her pout and hugged her lightly. They walk in a half hug all the way to lunch talking about the procedure and the look on Snape's face when he realized they hadn't blown themselves up. When they walked into lunch and separated, he'd hugged her tightly and told her she was amazing.

"We're amazing," she corrected and headed towards the Ravenclaw table.

He could see her walking around and being stopped multiple times before she even reached her table and laughed.

_Miss Popularity..._

"Hey, I don't appreciate what you did earlier with my fiancee..."

He looked up freezing the flying cup of pumpkin juice before it splashed him and turned the cup back over until the liquid settled back into the cup. He tutted at Malfoy shaking a finger.

"Tsk, tsk , tsk. You should really watch that temper Malfoy... you remember what happened this summer, yeah?"

He blinked and Blaise knew he caught the drift. Spending a week or two in the hospital with a broken nose, arm, ribs,leg and a punctured lung all because you said the wrong thing about Blaise's favorite sister would leave a mark on him wouldn't it?

Of course it would.

Blaise figured Malfoy really didn't want _that_ ass whupping again as he grumbled and they ate in peace with Blaise stealing loving glances across the hall where Elena was sitting amongst the Ravenclaw Quidditch team.

She'd been the Ravenclaw seeker ever since she arrived. His lovely Elena was the reason they beat Griffyndors last year. She played beater when needed but that was only when the Ravenclaw team didn't give a damn about the game...They played for fun because everyone knew the important games, the ones that everyone really came to, had Slytherin vs Griffyndor in the heading. It wasn't until Elena came on the seen with her insane methods of riding a broom that people really showed up willingly to Quidditch matches.

_But that doesn't matter..._

He sighed in content, heading to their next class meeting Elena again. It was nice...Very nice. But for how much longer could they be this way before the danger set in?

He reached the room he shared with three others and fell into bed sighing at the comfort of a place far from home. Dinner had been smooth, he hadn't beat the crap out of Malfoy, nothing terrible had happened to Elena and he had the most wonderful view of her across the Great Hall.

He laughed turning over on his bed.

_Who would have though that one person would make me feel this way?_

Like he mattered...

Like he was something...

Like he was in love...

_More like I'm a man..._

And he was hers whether she knew it yet or not.


	5. Make Dreams A Reality

_Now the clock has turned and time stands still_

_I watched the tears, your eyes fill_

_And now I wished for nothing more_

_To see you smile and hold you in my arms.  
_

_I was no one before you._

He supposed sighing at this next bit wouldn't do much to help the circumstances. I'll say it again, he doesn't have anything against the way things turned out. At all...

Okay, I take it back. He hoped to _Dio_ that Draco Malfoy finds somewhere to die a slow painful death... maybe like the worst death possible, mentioned in _Slaughterhouse-Five._ Take the honey and make it molasses that has to be heated to scalding temperature before pouring it on, wait till it cools and hardens first, and make sure it's laced with some pheremone to make some type of magical nibbling creatures ravenous and take a very long time to eat it. Instead of looking up at the sun, make him watch what's happening by cutting his eyelids off and forcing his head down and-...

I'm getting ahead of myself. You'll understand when you read this next bit. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, go read the book... or google it.

* * *

Walking onto the platform once more, he breathed in the scent of his sixth year of school. Second to last and he was ready for it to be over. This year would be _good, amazing, phenomenal!_ At least, that's what he hoped.

He heard her voice before he saw her, like fire in my veins, a warmth he would never stop loving. After reveling in the feeling, he turned to find her.

"If you don't get your slimey hands off my ass, you won't have them anymore, _capito_?"

There was a sound of a solid punch and a bunch of dropped items and Blaise turned to see her storming off away from some idiot seventh year that decided it was a good idea to feel her up. He shook his head. Nothing had changed.

No, that's not completely right.

He looked down and smiled walking to board the train. As he headed down the hallway, ignoring the "oohs" and giggles, Blaise found an empty compartment and put his bag down on the seat to lean against the window and close his eyes. Noemi would be proud to see him refraining from pulling another stunt like he'd done the year before. Seeing his reflection in the glass, he could only smile.

_I wonder if she'll even recognize me. She hadn't lastyear... and I do look a bit different now..._

Okay much different now, if the truth be told. He was officially six feet nine inches now, a summer rugby player, quidditch chaser/beater, a soccer player, a swimmer, and deep end goalie for water polo. With all the outdoor activity, he was a little darker, dark caramel is what Noemi called him. In any case, his hair grew out and he hadn't had a chance to to cut it with everything going on that summer so it was now unruly, curly, and tied back from his face. If Blaise could travel back in time, he would have been mistaken for a darker version of Casanova.

_A more handsome version of Casanova_, Noemi's voice piped up in his head.

She'd done just as much building him up as she'd done teaching him how to handle himself. She gave him a sense of confidence, not arrogance and sometime near the end of the summer she'd said something along the lines that she doubted he really had an arrogant bone in his body. He'd complained and said that it was just her way of telling him he was a complete and total cream puff pacifist and he hadn't grown out of the quiet boy he was when he entered his second year at Hogwartts. She laughed, kissed his cheek and told him that that was what _he _thought of himself and that he'd proven her point.

There was no way she could teach him to be a man, but she did tell him how to treat a woman. _Respect _and how to be charming. More than that, she taught him to tame his thoughts and thanks to her they were more controlled and more violent since his last encounter with the slowly disfiguring Draco Malfoy.

For the sake of sparing gory details, let's just say Draco said something he shouldn't have _again _and has been recuperating in St. Mongo's version of the Emergency Room.

"Excuse me..." A soft voice said from the doorway and he looked up.

_Elena._

_We must really stop meeting like this..._he thought a little amused.

"Can I? Every where else is full and I haven't been able to find anyone else that I know..."

He nodded quietly and she came in with a violin sized case in her arm and another bag, taking a seat across from me and sighing as her body slumped against the bench. He watched her out of the corner of his eye, tracing every curve of her with an appreciative eye._  
_

_Beautiful._

Her busty Italian heritage had come out quite nicely, she could have been a model if not for her dress. She looked like the typical teenage tomboy that she was. Converse sneaker, ripped shorts that looked a little on the soccer player side, and a fitting t-shirt. She was a bit darker than he remembered, but her eyes and hair gave her away. Still so bright and full of life, her hair dark and glossy over her shoulder, spilling down her chest. She'd let it grow to his surprise, he always thought that she would take the first chance she got to cut it.

"I'm sorry, I don't believe we've met. I'm Elena... Elena Valentin."

Blaise smirked at her outstretched hand and calmed the herd running around his stomach. He'd almost missed the feeling since he hadn't seen her for much time that summer.

"We have met before... _Elena._"

She blinked and froze as their eyes met. There was apprehension in her eyes and fear. Apparently she hadn't been around any baritones lately.

Yes, dropping his voice and stretching him out were only the little perks to puberty. Something that Noemi had continued to curse his luck for. He was what some would call a slow bloomer... _Joy_. His other three sisters had come home for a family function and had been with an inch of trying to jump him until Noemi pointed out that it would be _incestuous and pedophilic, there's no need to get any higher on the whore scale. _They stared at Blaise in shock and hadn't spoken to him for the rest of the day. His father had come surprisingly. Of course, he'd only seen him once screwing a random woman that they were probably related to in some way in one of the closets around the Zabini household. He decided after a while that it was better to hang out with his friend, Massimo, his girlfriend, and Noemi until someone else he could manage to stand more than five minutes of time with, preferably without being scarred for life, appeared.

He'd convinced his mother to let him stay the rest of the summer with Noemi in her flat in the opera district just outside of the wizarding side of the city. Needless to say in staying with Noemi, who was determined to make him turn out to be eons better of a man than his father was and give him the confidence to go after Elena, there was no chance of him being anything less than what he was now...

Positively Machiavellian.

"We... have?... I don't think we have-" Her voice faultered as he stood, towering over her and leaned down, forcing her legs apart with one knee as he looked into her eyes.

It hadn't been that hard to do as she hadn't wanted his knee to grind into her thighs but all the same his insides were jumping around and he wondered if this was pushing it a little bit? Maybe?...

_Maybe a little..._

"Yes... we have..."

She blinked, blinked, and blinked again. Her eyes widened almost comically, more than likely the dawning of who the man standing over her was occured.

"You're that guy that was stalking me last year aren't you? " She asked.

He blinked and couldn't help but laugh. Really? _Really? _

_Oh Dio, only Elena... only my dear Elena would say something like that... Only my dear Elena._

She blinked and tilted her head, " You're... not my stalker then?"

"No dear god no... Come on Elena...Is it not obvious?"

Cutely, she blinked and pouted trying to figure it out, "If it was then I wouldn't be having this much of a problem! You'll have to help me out here, my brain isn't quite off of summer break yet."

"I think you've been hit too many times with a bludger dear Elena..."

"Are you... a Ravenclaw?"

"No."

"Gryfinndor?"

"No."

"Hufflepuff?" She asked disbelieving and he chuckled shaking his head, crossing his arms and sitting back into his seat.

He would never tell her that she had the hardest time identifying people if they didn't look exactly the same, nor that it was immensely fun to see her freaking out that she didn't know who he was. Elena was the social butterfly of the school, she knew most people by at the very least their last name. She was great with putting names to faces but it never failed that she would always fail for a while at seeing Blaise's new look as just a new look rather than a totally different person.

"Ragazza bella, piu fortun avro... ma se non memoria..."_Beautiful girl with plenty of fortune but no memory._

"_Blaise?_"She asked shocked with the revelation, " No... Now way... There's no way in hell... You can't be Blaise... Blaise isn't... he isn't... He isn't you~... What the hell, are you doing this on purpose? Everytime I turn around you... you~..."

He raised an eyebrow at her antics as she stood pacing back and forth in the compartment and glancing at him with a mix of derision and disbelief. He could help but watch her and smile. She was so animated after all.

"And even if you were Blaise, which you aren't, you wouldn't look like that. Blaise had short hair, he was lighter than me... His eyes were normal blue... not... not... _that _blue. Furthermore, Blaise wouldn't-"

Grasping her hands and turning her, he covered her mouth with a single finger and pulled her down between his legs to look into her eyes. She wasn't breathing and shivered a little at the warmth of his hands and the warmth of his eyes. If it was possible, his eyes were even bluer than they'd been the year before and maybe darker with some emotion she couldn't place.

"You think too much darling...If I am not Blaise, which I am, how on Earth do I know that you're an anamorphmagus with a penchant for changing hair and eye color at the strangest times. Or that you, my dear one, have been stalked countless times..."

"Everyone knows that... I'm not exactly the hardest to notice..." She defended.

He lifted her chin to look into his eyes gently and leaned forward to whisper in her ear, "_Pioggia di smeraldo e oro di sogna, La mia voce e nel buio._"

She gulped and looked up at him with wary eyes, " Blaise... really?"

Blaise nodded and her eyes wandered over him, down to his waist and back up again. He almost held his breath at what she would say.

"Noemi, got to you huh?"

Blaise chuckled, "You could say that."

"It's... a good look for you. Any heart's you're planning to break just don't break one's that I know, alright?"

He shook his head again as she stood and launched herself back into her chair and pouted.

"I'm sorry about my terrible memory."

"It's okay."

"Is it possible that one year you come back, you could at least try to look like you did the year before?"

He laughed,"I'll see what I can do."

He stuck his hand in his bag and pulled out a velvet box and handed it over to her. "I have gift for you seeing as how we didn't get to see each other over break. Happy Birthday."

She blinked as he handed her the box with the bracelet he'd made especially for her... Just for her...

"I'm terrible at wrapping, magic or no. But it's charmed," he said as she looked at the velvet box and smiled. "For your condition."

She blinked, " You make it sound like I'm crazy."

"Well... you do hear voices. If I didn't know better, I'd say that's crazy."

She stuck out her tongue and opened the box the bracelet was enchanted steel and if used correctly could probably take out most of someone's teeth. When he'd been hanging out with Massimo in his father's jewelry shop, he'd seen a piece like it and took up an apprenticeship with his family. He was sure she'd put it to good use other than keeping other people's thoughts out of her head.

"Are you ready for the year?"

"Yep, couldn't be better..." She said grinning. The door opened with Malfoy's sneering face and she glared back at him.

"What do you want Malfoy?" Elena asked growling at him.

"Come now Elena... you remember what happens when you disobey me don't you?"

Blaise blinked and frowned as she stood turning to face him.

"I just want a kiss darling..."

"Oh yeah?"

She marched over and grabbed his collar and punch him into the opposite compartment.

"I don't give a damn what you can do to me... I'm not some servant you can order around..." She turned and closed the door as he pulled out his wand.

In a wave of panic, Blaise grabbed her hand, pulling her away from the door to shield her. But there was no light coming from the end of his wand, only silence and her body falling into Blaise's arms. Her scream would haunt him forever.

* * *

Watching her rest for the rest of the train ride he thought he might be running a fever. The rage boiling up inside him ran hot through his body and over his skin. He wanted to slaughter a ferret faced Slytherin.

"Oh my head~..." She groaned breaking him from his violent train of thoughts as they were soon flushed out with worry.

"Elena... babe are you alright?"

Her eyes rolled to meet the worried azure eyes looking down at her, "What'd you say?"

"I asked if you were alright..."

_I have got to cut down on the terms of endearment..._

He didn't actually plan on cutting down on anything as he smiled at her lovingly. She would never know, not at the rate it was going. She would never know how he felt about her and somehow he became okay with it so long as he got to stay by her side.

"I'm fine," she groaned. "Just dizzy. That one sucked bad...How far are we?"

"Not very...Time enough for you to change..."

She nodded as stood pulling her bag down as he sat down and watched her. He was still shaking with worry and rage as she calmly rifled through her bag to pull out her uniform...that was until she started unlacing her shoes.

He swore if he was of a light complexion he would have been Gryffindor Red.

"Uhm... Elena, you're not about to change in here are you?"

"Uh... yeah... Don't worry, your honor will be spared."

He scoffed and reigned back the blush, staring at her in embarrassed shock as black peaked over the top of her shorts. He turned his head to advert his attention to the passing scenery. She had to have been doing that as payback, right? Stealing a glance in her direction she hummed lightly pulling her button up over her tank top and her skirt over her shorts and her knee high socks over her painted toes. They were covered in glitter and he almost laughed. He never pegged Elena to be a _ooh~ shiny _type of girl, but at least she hadn't planned on really _undressing_ in front of him. As shameless as she'd always been about herself, he didn't think he could deal with that without exploding.

"Is that why... you hardly have anything on when you get on the train?"

"Of course, it's a lot easier to change that way." She said swinging her les onto the space beside him and pulling on her black shoes for school.

She sat back with a satisfied grin, munching on chocolate.

"Could I ask," Blaise started making her stop eating for a moment. "What he did to you?"

"It's a type of binding used for predetermined marriages. He can cause me pain whenever I don't do something he likes. It's supposed to be like a training tool for marriage."

"How could he..."

She shrugged, "Because he's a smarmy little git."

"Are you sure that-"

"I don't need anyone to come and save me Blaise, I'm fine."

No matter how much he wanted to tell her she was wrong. Blaise couldn't, he wouldn't. From her body language, she was already ashamed that he'd seen her that weak, bringing up the fact of why wouldn't help her.

He smiled instead and pulled her towards him to hugged her gently, " I know... you're the Cinderella with an AK-47."

She laughed at that and hugged him back. When the train stopped her followed her out of the train. There wasn't much more Blaise could do for her but take her hand and guide her to an awaiting carriage. Arriving at the Great Hall, they split and as usual she was pulled down across tables and held up before making her way to the Ravenclaw table. It all felt normal as new students arrived, dinner was eaten and they went to their separate houses.

It wasn't until the next morning when Blaise took a seat beside Pansy that anything had obviously changed. He groaned.

_My lucky day._

Where Pansy was Draco was sure to be. They were like magnets and lo and behold the bastard himself appeared with a smarmy grin. In Blaise's opinion, if there was a curse stronger than _Avada Kedvra_, it would have been made specifically for Malfoy. He'd have to get to work on creating a spell like that would make him suffer until death instead of the immediate fall into oblivion that the Killing Curse offered.

"We ought to have a good quidditch season with old Ravenclaw out of the way..."

"Why is that Drakkie?"

"How many times do I- oh never mind. Without their star player Elena the Ravenclaw team is nothing."

"You really think so?" Crabbe asked.

"Of course, I'm the one that controls her after all."

Blaise bit his lip from speaking and stood taking his bag and heading to class with not another word. He took the rest of his breakfast, and his chocolate flavored coffee with him out into the hall in the thermos Noemi had gotten him for _completing his summer training, _or rather surviving it.

"Yo, yo, yo, Blaise!"

He almost chuckled and turned to her. She waved and laced her arm with his, pulling Blaise towards class.

"We have to sit together this year, we never do and it's not fair..."

Her pout silenced his protests as she pulled Blaise into a row just behind Hermione, Harry, and Ron. He sighed as class began and he could feel Malfoy's eyes burning holes into his back. Blaise had half the thought to snicker a bit.

_The poor bastard._

To make matter worse for the sniveling ferret, he was in a very _accidental_ in touching atmosphere with her. Being so close, pulling her hair away from the cauldron and brushing his fingers across her skin. Torturing Malfoy and every other guy in the class _and _be close to Elena?

Best first day _ever._

Of course Elena went right along with it, smiling up at him, grinning even and thanking him for keeping unneeded ingredients from the cauldron.

"Cork a sample of your potions, label it and leave it on my desk." Elena took care of it as he cleaned up their work station.

Blaise carried her bag to the door for her and they headed out together.

"Hey, Zabini!"

He turned and pulled Elena out of the way, just in time to dodge some hex that bounced off the corridor walls. She'd spun into his arm and tilted back a little in the flurry of moment. Holding her in his arms, everything else melted away. She sighed a little moving closer to the welcome warmth of him while the hexes stopped flying and Blaise forced himself to pull her up on her feet and let her go. He never thought releasing something would be that hard.

"Are you alright?"

She nodded, "Nice reflexes there..."

"Had practice..." He answered tentatively through slightly clenched teeth.

She laughed and they continued to class. She'd been his practice when Noemi told him he must learn out to tango at the very least.

_All the other dances are simple, _she'd said_. The tango is the sexiest and if you're going to learn to dance before your Seventh Year Ball, looking like that, you'd better learn something extremely sexy._

He shook his head. What Noemi asked of him is what she got and to his luck Elena was taking the same class with her cousin at her cousin's behest. It had been the best class he'd ever taken with her.

"What exactly did you do over the summer? Besides learn the Argentine tango and create a bit of a fan club for yourself." He laughed. "You look like you... uhm... beefed up a bit..."

"I could ask the same of you. You look like an Amazon."

She blushed, " I do not."

"You do and I guarentee I am not the only one that thinks so... You didn't wonder why some idiot tried to feel you up at the train station?"

"Don't bring that up again, please." She said scoffing as they entered the greenhouse and once again Draco and the Golden Trio followed.

_This is going to be a long year..._

"I was in Italy all summer. You know, enjoying the sun, the beaches. I stayed with Noemi for most of it."

Her eyes softened with the tone of my voice, "All I had was mom around besides Draco and his mother."

She beamed up at him as he squeezed her hand comfortingly. He never thought he could feel so out of breath and while not standing perfectly still. She squeezed back and released his hand as class began. The class passed fairly slowly between more notes and small jokes between them and half paid attention to a lesson they'd already read, studied, tried and tested.

After classes were over, Blaise headed to the Quidditch pitch with the Golden Trio to watch the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw team scrimage. It was going well once Harry and Elena shook hands as captains and ascended to start the game.

"Alright everyone play fairly," Elena said and stood up on her broom. "No fighting, biting, or anything. This is just a warm up for the season."

Her team sucked on their teeth but agreed leaving the Gryffindor team a bit confused as to why and how Elena was standing on her broom. The game started and never once did Blaise think he'd be so scared watching a Quidditch game. Her broom looped in the air around Harry's and Blaise could have sworn she was trying to give them all a heartattack when she managed to deflect a bludgeon with a solid kick and flip back onto her broom. All the while doing what seemed to be the cha-cha. Blaise shook his head , not daring to believe what he was seeing, when something across the field caught his eye.

Platinum blonde and sneering: Draco Malfoy.

His body stood on instinct and headed down to see what he was plotting only to reach the quidditch pitch too late. She was screaming above his head. In some agony that was indescribably horrific to his ears. Falling, falling so fast from so high above the quidditch pitch, she knew she was going to die. Unlike all the other times she'd fallen while she perfected her broom riding, the tether to her broom was broken in the panic. It didn't recognize her anymore because of the curse she was under. She was falling and there was no chance of anything saving team had stopped the game to swing by and save her and they missed her grasping hand by inches and they tried and tried to get to her but she was falling, flailing, too fast for any of them to get a good grip on her.

Draco snickered and watched her fall and Blaise was racing across the field to catch her idly flying broom and beeline to catch her. He zoomed across willing it to go faster in time to catch her a hundred or so feet above the ground. The force was too much and they crashed, tumbling over the field, rolling across the pitch with her head tucked into his shoulder so that he bore the brute force of the fall. When the world finally stopped spinning and her broom hovered beside them, Blaise heard her whimper against his chest as her team set down and surrounded them.

She'd fallen off her broom plenty of times, they'd seen it but the magic tether she had to her broom always kept the broom aware of her falling so that she could catch on at the last minute and go zooming off into the sky and keep playing. They'd never seen her fall like that.

"Get back," Blaise said softly feeling her tears soaking through his shirt.

He covered the back of her head with a hand and swung her up into his arms as he rose to his feet.

"I'll take her to the Infirmary..."

Cyrus nodded and Blaise headed towards the large arching doorways. She trembled but didn't fight as he hid her bruised body and tear stained face in the folds of his robes and hurried through the corridors to somewhere safe for her. There was a range in which the spell could work, right? So maybe if he got her far enough away the effects would fade away. Blaise knew how illogical this thought was but it didn't matter as he crossed the threshold into the infirmary and she broke into violent tears. Madame Pomfrey seemed to be on call to somewhere else in the castle meaning the large hall was empty except for her sobs and Blaise's barely restrained anger.

"_Elena_," He whispered softly sliding down against a hidden corner as her body shook and shuddered with the force of her crying.

She needed help and there didn't seem to be anything he could do for her except hold her close, stroke her hair, rub her back, and wait until she could speak. He held her as if she would vanish if he didn't.

"I-I-I f-f-fell..." She choked out and he sighed and kissed her forehead lightly.

"You're alright now, aren't you? Nothing broken?"

She shook her head, " H-Hu-Hurts..."

"Madame Pomfrey should be back soon-"

"Don't leave," She said the only solid phrase. It was so soft, so quiet, he had almost missed it. _Almost._

"I won't," He promised, "Take deep breaths and dodn't hesitate to tell me if you need something. I'm here for you..." _I love you._

He still wonders to this day she knew what he meant. If even with the charm blocking everyone's thoughts, could she hear his? She only curled up against him as her hair turned a shifting ebony and her eyes closed. Blaise wrapped her up in his cloak gently and rocked her back and forth far longer than the time it took her to stop shaking. By the time Madame Pomfrey arrived from saving some poor first year, she was already asleep.

"Mr. Zabini, would you please explain why you and Ms. Valentin look like the plague?"

He chuckled despite the situation and stood with her in his arms. She clung to him, refusing to let go as he tried to lay her down on one of the beds.

"She fell off her broom and would have crashed to her death, but we ended up rolling across the pitch for a while. She's asleep."

She frowned,"Elena fell off her broom? Is she sick?"

"No," He replied with a meaningful stare.

From the first moment Blaise walked into the Infirmary in his first year during a lonesome wandering, he and Madame Pomfrey had a link. Nothign too obvious, but an understanding an almost companionship. He would never be sick but would come to the Infirmary to get away from everything. He'd help her when she asked him and asked her questions about different healing charms and the practice. She was the reason he considered going into medical wizardry instead of being and Aurora.I was also pretty good with healing charms and if being an Auror didn't work out I could handle working at St. Mongo's. She approached the bed as Blaise set Elena down and coaxed her hands into his so that she could be examined and know he hadn't left her side.

Madame Pomfrey peeled away the layers of her uniform and gasped as the bruises and darkening black ancient runes on her shoulders were revealed.

"I have never seen something so cruel..."

"What is it?" He asked as she pulled down edge of Elena's tank top across her back to get a better look.

"It's the oldest and the most distrurbed forms of binding. It's where the Dark Mark originated from."

Blaise swallowed hard.

"It compels the person to obey for fear of excruciating pain. It's like the Unforgiveable Curse stamp. It drains the life and will out of the person until they are nothing more than a glassy eyed doll."

As Blaise looked down at Elena and Madame Pomfrey left the bedside to retrieve her wand and some salve, he almost began to cry. Elena opened her eyes and looked up at him with soft and empty eyes. Why hadn't she said something, anything, about what Malfoy was doing to her. When she'd told him what it was, why did she leave out that it would drain the life out of her?

Why wouldn't she let him help her?

"I know what you're going to say."

"Why didn't you tell me?" He whispered, "I could have-"

"I don't need someone to save me-"

"Yes you do!" Surging to his feet in rage seeing her lying there like that. Didn't she understand? Was she really so stubborn that she wouldn't admit that it was killing her?

"Look at what he's doing to you! Why won't you just let me help you? Why on Earth are you being so stubborn?"

She blinked and his eyes widened as tears overflowed at the words. An overwhelming sense of guilt came over him and he turned to leave.

"Blaise," she whispered and he took off running at that soft call.

Not now, he couldn't and he remembered arriving at the Room of Requirements with no memory of how he got there. Sitting in the middle of the room was a phone and a violin sitting on a desk surrounded by mirrors, empty space, and a chair.

He sat down and picked up the phone and dialed that number he remembered so well and waited for her to pick up.

"Hello?"

"_Noemi_," Blaise whispered softly in a broken tone that made her worry.

She'd been home watching television and eating on the floor of her workspace in her flat when the phone rang.

"Blaise? How on Earth are you calling me? Aren't you at Hogswart?"

"The Room of Requirements... I need to talk to you."

She went silent for a moment and leaned over to turn off the television and set the fork she'd been eating with down.

"I'm listening."

He doesn't remember exactly what she said or what he said for that matter, but when he hung up the phone he opened the desk, took out the pad of paper and picked up the violin without thinking. By the time he finished, three hours had passed and felt a little better, but not much.

He walked out and headed to the infirmary after snatching some food from the table and heading back out. Had Blaise sat at that table, within firing range, there's no telling if they would just kill me or send him to Azkaban. Not looking forward to either of the grim choices, he left. When he entered the infirmary, the place was silent and she was still sleeping, lying there quietly. From where Blaise stood it seemed that the curse had spread and her tears had not been wiped. He rollled the scoll up with simple note attached: _Find Me _and left the room. She stirred, murmured, and drifted back into whatever peaceful dream she was having as he kissed her cheek and headed back to the Slytherin common room. Blaise never thought the cold feel of the Slytherin common room's leather couch would be soothing until that night. The night where if he entered his bedroom there was no telling if I would strangle the man lying in the adjacent bed in his sleep. He closed his eyes and dreamt of warm eyes and sunlight.

He only wished he could make dreams reality.


	6. The Best Thing He Would Ever Do

_Here I am against the wall.  
_

_I sleep safely knowing that she's gone._

There is a woman reading this ready to either kill Blaise or hug him, and I'm sure it will be the former as the story continues up to his seventh year. There is only so much she could understand, only so much that he understood and so much more that he couldn't afford to understand.

Slowly and surely the truth about them, their future-or lack thereof- and his helplessness to change it sunk in.

* * *

"Blaise," She called as she walked into the Room of Requirements.

He looked at her through the mirrors surrounding them and said nothing as the door closed. She looked around curious as it was not their secret grotto that they'd always known but something akin to a small concert hall. It had been three days since he'd seen her face and when he heard that she was up and moving around he'd been ecstatic and terrified all at one.

"Blaise?"

The scroll clenched in her hand and he turned to her offering a wave of his hand, beckoning her to sit down. His insides ran around in a crazy frenzy like he couldn't control them and it didn't matter. Two steps, three, he was getting closer to the couch she sat on and knelt before her. The room was silent for a few moments before either tried to speak. It was Elena that broke the silence.

"I read your letter..." she said. "You're right... you're my best friend and I should have told you-"

He shook his head placing a finger at her lips to silence her before he began to speak.

"Forgive me, Elena." He said. "It wasn't- I shouldn't have yelled at you... I can't possibly understand the pain you're in right now... having your soul ripped apart and glued together with his."

Their gazes met then as she reached up to pull his hand away from her mouth and into her smaller hands. She squeezed gently and smiled at him before kissing his cheek.

"Why are you so kind to me?"

He smirked softly. The words "Because I love you" were humming on his lips but he swallowed them down as the warmth that spread from his face leaked through the rest of his body.

_Why do you have this effect on me?_

But he already knew the answer.

"I'm not kind, I just have sense which is more than I can say for you."

She laughed and through her eyes he could see her small joy shinning through the darkness. Draco was killing her. He kissed her hands and hugged her for a moment before standing and crossing the room to hold up the violin she'd made for him.

"Are you going to play me a song for my forgiveness, Blaise?" She asked teasingly. "How romantic of you."

He laughed, she had _no _idea of how much of a hopeless romantic he was. Noemi found this out over lunch when she'd asked what Elena was like.

"I figured it would be a good return to the normal for us..."

She laughed and curled up on the couch to watch him. It wasn't just normal, it was _tradition_ since she gave him the violin the year before. He wrote a song for her for Christmas and played it on the train ride home. After that she'd asked him if she could come watch him practice and aside from heart to heart conversations in the dead of night, she'd come sing along with what ever melody he was playing. Their eyes met and she smiled excitedly as he started playing.

It was always enthralling to see Blaise play. She figured that it was something that he'd let very few people see. Of course when he'd taken classes, he was surrounded by instructors, but seeing him _play, _seeing him go somewhere inside his mind and let instinct and passion take over him wasn't something he let many people see. It was a whole new part of Blaise she'd never seen and in return she sang for him. The first time it'd happened, he stopped playing and just listened to her voice, enchanted by the sound of her voice and the passion there. He'd fallen in love with her all over again. When she realized he wasn't playing anymore, she told him that she'd never sung in front of anyone else before and asked if she was terrible.

"Your voice is wonderful," he told her and watched the blush spread across her face with a smile.

What he played, what she sang, at their slight return to normal, neither of them could really remember. They did know that they could never recreate it, no matter how hard they tried to. The circumstance of those emotions would never be replicated. When the song ended and her voice faded into silence, they stared at each other with a slight curiosity. He gazed her like she was beautiful and her eyes were filled with an emotion he couldn't place. It didn't matter when she stood up and came closer to him and wrapped her arms around him. She hid her face in the broadness of his chest, inhaling the scent of the Mediterranean sea, his cologne, coffee and chocolate and something that was all his own in peace. He set his violin the table and wrapped his arms around her hoping that the scent of her would never leave his mind. She smelled like home and warmth and love and all the things he'd ever wanted in life.

She was everything he wanted in life.

They stood embracing each other for longer than either of them realized until her watch beeped with an alarm and she turned her face. His stomach growled and she laughed pulling back as her own stomach started growling too.

"Let's go get food." She said taking his hand and turning to skip towards the door.

He sighed a breath he didn't know he was holding as she turned and when he saw the black pattern of deadly runes were pulsing and slithering up her neck and he pulled her back around to face him. She looked up in confusion.

"You know... you can tell me the truth."

Elena averted her gaze but he continued knowing that she understood what he meant.

"You can tell me the truth," He repeated and waited for her response.

"I don't think you understand what you're asking," she whispered.

Her tone chilled his blood and he felt the caress of death up his spine. Not his own death but hers. She was dying, he could feel it. The lights of her eyes were giving way to a deep black darkness, her skin was cold, and her smile was frigid. The Elena, his _sogno_ was dying and all he could do was...

_Nothing._

The frustration welled up inside him faster than the rage at that blonde haired twat of a roommate whose image was emblazoned in blood and dying gasps in Blaise's mind.

_I will have my revenge on him..._

"I'm asking you to be honest with me. No more lying, no more sneaking to cast pain killing spells and taking three or four pain killers every hour just to be able to walk out of the dorms."

Her hand tensed and Blaise knew she hadn't meant for him, or anyone, to see. However, she should have expected nothing less from someone always observing-always observing _her_. Always hoping that in some way, she was watching him too. He almost scoffed at the pathetic-ness of his emotional situation. Here he was, standing before the love of his life as she died a slow painful death and couldn't do anything.

_Dio Mio, che cosa ho fatto per meritarmi questo?_

"You weren't supposed to see that."

"I don't think anyone else notices." He said. "That is until the medication wears off and you're nowhere to be found. But I know where you go-"

"Stop it."

"The infirmary or to the herbology room to look up a stronger pain killer-"

"Stop it," she whispered.

He wanted to, he hated the sound of her voice so soft and small, but it wasn't enough and it wouldn't be enough until she snapped. Until she realized it, until she realized how much she needed him. Until she realized how much she needed _somebody_ to help her. It wouldn't be enough until Blaise saw how much this was tearing her apart, how much he needed to help her.

"That mark isn't the only thing is it? There's more to this-"

"STOP IT!" She shrieked tearing her arm away from his and rushing across the room and out the door. He'd caught her in the corridor and she tore away from him hiding her face in the wall.

Her shoulders shook with the force of silent sobs and she slid down the cold hard stone, curling up against the unrelenting hardness. He hadn't meant to push her that far, but now that he had it was obvious that there were streaks of truth in his assumptions. Draco was abusing her not just with this curse. He had a feeling that when it came to Draco, there was an enforced weakness in her that made any resistance she tried to put up. His vision flashed red as he walked to her, kneeled and pulled her into his arms. She shook, relaxing bonelessly in his arms as he rubbed her back, stroked her hair, and let the space between her sobs fill with silence.

It wasn't until her sobs quieted into pitiful whimpers that he whispered, "Then be honest with me. There's more to this than you're telling me."

She sniffled and looked up with a weary smile, all the light and warmth in her eyes had damn near disappeared in the shadow of her agony. Blaise's breath caught in his throat and all he wanted to do was to kiss her, hold her, and strangle Malfoy.

_I want to kill him...**dead. **Not half way, not partially, not even just a little bit._

He wanted to kill him until even his soul vanished into oblivion and as ridiculous as that sounds it was true in every fiber of his being. Those tears that he wanted to wipe away taunted me as they slid down her cheeks. No matter how many he wiped away, there would always be more coming. Always more wounds to bandage, more pain to bear, it would never end and there was nothing he could do.

_Useless, unnoticed, waste of space..._the darker side of him taunted him. Y_ou can't save yourself how can you save her?_

"Elena," Blaise whispered almost silent and she pulled away from him to stand. He looked up at her but their eyes didn't meet.

He had glimpsed what was there but it was obvious that she wasn't ready to tell him the rest of it, but she'd acknowledged that he was right that there was more.

"We should hurry up if we mean to get something to eat."

He nodded and headed towards the Great Hall. Before she was in the light coming from the hall and in the view of the entire hall, he pulled her back and spun her around to face him. Unlike normal when she speaks to someone, when she faces someone, she didn't look up. He didn't ask why, because he already knew the answer. After that embrace, after everything they'd been through together, all the nights he would hold her as she cried. It wasn't surprising that he didn't ask why.

Blaise lifted her chin with a smile and kissed her cheek, "All will be well."

Her eyes widened and her face flushed with color and life. He kissed her other cheek and stepped back from her. Walking past her, he saw the blush deepen and spread over her cheeks and grow a bit more tan since the last kiss. She rushed towards the Ravenclaw table and almost tripped. He found it odd that she tripped on nothing but air. She usually wasn't clumsy at all. In fact, she was everything except clumsy. Blaise smirked at, and shrugged off, the still present blush and life on her face. Taking his seat at the edge of the table where Malfoy and his posse occupied Blaise kept an eye on her, ignoring Malfoy's sneer in his direction.

"Hey, Zabini. Hands off, she's mine." He said and Blaise didn't respond but choked down another cup of pumpkin juice, wishing for something stronger.

He wasn't sure if Draco saw the kiss in the corridor, but he wasn't so daft as to not notice Blaise's smirk and stare. He half thought he was but he guessed he was mistaken. When he glanced at Draco with a smirk, the ferret's expression turned angry. Blaise didn't see what he was doing with his wand pointed at the Ravenclaw table, but he didn't need to.

It was an odd thing to be sitting across from the idiot one moment and jumping from his seat the next as the whole hall was silent with only the screams of the Ravenclaw team. She was there in the middle of them all seizing in the circle of them with her eyes rolling back in her head. He scooped her up into his arms and headed to the infirmary with Madame Pomfrey just behind him. He was out the door, but not before he managed a glare at Draco as he raced out of the Great Hall and towards the infirmary with the Ravenclaw team behind him.

Blaise set her down on the bed as Madame Pomfrey conjured up some nerve relaxer and did a few other things that didn't quite sink in as they should have. His heart pounded in his ears and somewhere in between brushing her hair back and when the rest of her team arrived, she was consciously staring at him with eyes that he'd never seen before. Tears spilled over the banks like starlight and she didn't blink looking up at him. He didn't think she could, he certainly couldn't. His was heart racing with fear and everyone's voice faded into that drowning beat and silence. Her gasping breaths sounded like screaming in his ears and the thud of her pulse was as loud as his own in his ears and slowing.

_It's impossible! _The darker side of him laughed at the pathetic nature of it all.

He knew that from the beginning, but until then he denied it. Denied it till then and he had to face the truth. The spark of hope that flitted in between the moments he thought of her and the space she took up in hiss chest, fizzled out as these maddening thoughts swirled around and around in his head. Blaise had been searching for the silver lining in this cloud and learned the hard way that there was nothing glittering in this hell. This is how it was. _This_ is what would happen every time Draco didn't like something she did. This is the consequence of being with her and one day either she would break and go insane, or she'd die because of him.

_Because I loved her, because I was with her, because... because-_

Blaise bit his lip and leaned down to kiss her forehead gently as her eyes slid shut softly and her breathing slowed to normal.

"_I'm sorry,_" a choked sob escaped her lips and she reached for him.

Holding onto my shoulder, pulling him down to her frantically. Trembling with the after shock and fear, she pulled him down until her face was buried in his chest and he wrapped his arms around her. Stroking her hair, rocking her gently and pulling her closer, he held back from crying form the slowly coming realization that he would have to let her go if he wanted her to have any semblance of peace. She shivered a bit as the tears died down and Blaise wrapped his cloak around her and hugged her close. Giving her teammates the "okay" to leave her with Blaise, Madame Pomfrey disappeared into her office and Professor Dumbledore swept into the Infirmary, stopping at the bed they occupied.

The old man was really of no importance as Blaise considered his course of action after he was sure she was going to be okay.

_It would kill me_, he thought sadly.

Every inch of him would writhe in pain and protest when he cut this bond, the thought of it was pain enough. But stroking her hair and rocking her, he knew there was really no other way. So long as she was out of harms way there was no such thing as _it would hurt too much._

"Ms. Valentin, I'd like to have a word with you."

She sniffled and shook her head.

"_Bella_," He whispered into her hair and kissed the top of her head. "I think it's best-"

"No," she whimpered clinging to him. "You'll leave."

Blaise glanced at the Professor, "I'll come back."

"No you won't~..." She whined pitifuly.

Blaise bit his lip. He'd never seen her this way and it scared and angered him greatly. If she was like this, who knew how much worse it could get if he stayed with or if he left? Something told him that it was a long fall into a darkness that could be only a few inches deep or a few million leagues.

"If wishes to stay, that is inquiry is about the nature of your curse."

She swallowed and refused to look up.

"Is it true?" He asked.

She nodded and Dumbledore sighed. Blaise rubbed her back gently trying to stave off her shivers as he slipped her charmed ring back onto her finger and the bracelet on her wrist. He opened up his own barriers upon feeling the Professor probing.

_It is unwise for you to be seen with Ms. Valentin for the time being. Mr. Malfoy is dangerous and believes in every way that she is his... seeing as how he has marked her in such a disgraceful way._

Blaise looked at her sadly, _Is there an anti-curse?_

_Only the bestower can take it off...And I doubt that Mr. Malfoy bestowed such an intricate curse upon her._

Blaise sighed and kissed her head again as her eyes slid closed in exhaustion and he manuevered her down to sleep.

"You love her," Dumbledore remarked as Blaise tucked her in and lay his cloak over her.

She shifted in her sleep and murmured something but did not wake as he stepped away.

"That goes without saying."

"I must reinterate that Ms. Valentin will be in the second stage, and quickly approaching the final stage from which there is no return, by the end of the year depending on how hard she fights it. Thus posing a bigger problem... The hold is strong now... even as she fights it."

"I know... I might have the summer with her right?"

"I believe so, yes."

Blaise breathed in a trembling breath and walked towards the door. He needed to leave before he woke her up and kissed her, before he ripped himself to pieces and watched her destroy herself. Blaise knew Elena wouldn't do what was best for her.

He smirked, _She always does what she wants..._

That was part of what he loved about her. The other part? Her honesty... her blatant disregard for her own well-being (no matter how annoying it is) in favor for someone else's safety. She was a self-sacrificer and stubborn, he knew that much, but a curse that complicated from much higher powers than Malfoy or his father...even her will wouldn't stand up to it.

It was old, very old dark magic. And there was no way that he could take that on that anyone could take that on...

_Not yet... Not now._

Blaise sank down into the Prefect bathtub on the ground floor and sighed. (Yes, he is a Prefect, big shocker right?) The mermaid on the window pane smiled sadly at his sullen expression and he couldn't blame her. He knew what he had to do but dammnit if he didn't want to. He had until the end of the summer to do it... Knowing Elena, she had plans for the summer that didn't include Malfoy and that would have to be enough time...

_Make enough memories... hold her enough to last me for the rest of my life and hope that my heart won't stop beating after I let her go._

He prayed that his own resolve would hold out to do what he needed to do. There wasn't much else he could do about it. _Dio_, he hated himself already.

* * *

Don't be confused, he hated himself before this, for all his helplessness and weakness. That hate only intensified at the realization that he couldn't do anything to save her life, but let her have a life without him.

Killing himself? No, that wasn't good enough. He wanted to suffer for the pain he was going to have to put her through. He wanted to suffer until he died. Die alone, cold, and maybe when he died _Dio_ would take pity on him and make him suffer more to maybe, just maybe, give him the slightest sense of redemption.

He visited often and Blaise knew she was waiting for him to say something, tell her what was going on. She'd heard a little of the Professor's advice to me, but he didn't say anything, still unresolved and looking for a better way. Blaise smiled, teased, and helped her catch up on her studies and the incident was something they never really talked about._  
_

* * *

A week passed before rumors died down and the first Ravenclaw vs Slytherin game occured. Being her normal self, Elena grinned and shouted "Ravenclaw is victorious already because they have me!"

Her team laughed as she tired up her hair and pulled on her uniform. She reminded Blaise of a hyper little kid as she chewed on blue laffytaffy and turned her hair blue and gold for the sake of House spirit. He bid her congratulations and good luck before going to take a seat between the Ravenclaw and Slytherin side.

Malfoy looked more than smug as they flew up in the skies and the game began. Clenching his wand tightly, Blaise was watching, waiting, for anything to go wrong and then it happened. Since the incident, she hadn't gone back to the normal way she rode her broom and clung to thing as tightly as she could, praying that maybe the tether would return on its own.

_Goddmanit, why now?_

She was screaming, falling through clouds and space and the crowd gasped as she flailed and caught her broom as it zoomed over head. She swung over his head with a countenance of agony but pulled herself up on her broom and took off after Malfoy. Blaise prayed she wouldn't do anything stupid-... like _that for example_.

_One day... there would be a time when I could shake some sense into her and then kiss her senseless..._

At least he still hoped there would be.

She'd said _to hell with this! _ and stood up on her broom. Tether or not she was not going to let this sniveling _cheater_ win this game. She jumped off her broom, off Malfoy's back, and summersaulted ahead of him landing on her broom with a triumphant "Ole!"

Blaise laughed helplessly as Malfoy barely saved himself from crashing and she stuck out her tongue shaking the Golden Snitch in her hand. He knew she was saying something, cheering and screaming for joy probably as her broom descended and the game ended with Ravenclaw in the lead by some ridiculous amount of points and down a beater.

_You gotta love sheer determined willpower._

Blaise walked up to her and she grinned up at him holding up the Snitch in triumph.

"I told you..." she said with a smile like the sun.

He laughed helplessly, "Yes... you did."

Her face flushed and he hoped that one day he'd find out why. The noise died down and there were cheers at the Ravenclaw table that night. Malfoy grumbled at Pansy's side.

"That little _bint_, she'll get what she deserves."

Blaise watched her face falter with agony and she stood up to prove a point, moving systematically across her table singing.

"_Anything you can I can do better, I can do anything better than you~..._"

Blaise and the rest of her team laughed at her antics as her teammates joined in pointing at the Slytherin table with laughter and joy.

"_Even when you **cheat**, I can do better. Without cheating, **I'm better than you**~!_ "

"Yes you are!"

"Yes I Am!"

"Yes you are!"

"Yes I Am~!" She sung in an opera height and an angel's smile.

_The girl really has no sense... _Blaise thought laughing until his sides hurt.

Despite Draco's growling and the attempts to affect her with the curse, the laughter did not die down until after dinner when they headed up (or down rather) to the Slytherin common rooms, Blaise saw her disappear to the Infirmary.

Don't get it wrong, he wasn't following her.

_Nope..._

It just so happens that the Infirmary was on the way to the dudgeons (despite it being on the other side of the castle). He reconsidered the excuse.

_I made it part of my way to my bedroom just to hear the conversation going on._

"This isn't good for you."

"We've all gotta die someday and I'd rather go out spitting in his face."

He chuckled and continued back to the Dungeons with a smile. She hadn't changed at all.

When winter rolled around, he stayed with her. If possible, they were even more inseparable than they had been before. They were going home with Malfoy and according to her mother, they were all getting picked up together and thus had to stay together. Between Elena getting up frequently to converse with someone that wasn't in the compartment, Malfoy's dirty innuendo, his attempts to touch her, and the paling complexion she sported Blaise wasn't sure if she was going to kill Draco first or Blaise would.

Blaise came back with chocolate for the both of them after the Trolly passed the compartment and between the two of them that was _a lot_ of chocolate. Malfoy pulled her into his lap and she pushed away from him as he attempted to kiss her.

"You do know that when women are trying to push you away... it means they want you to stop whatever you're doing, right?" Blaise asked earning Draco's glare.

With the distraction, she managed to scrambled out of his lap and out the door.

"Look Zabini... don't think I don't know the way you look at her... I can see it, " he said and Blaise blinked uncaring.

_With love?_ he wanted to quip but stayed silent and stood to leave.

"She's already been promised to me, she's mine. She can't _live_ without _me_," Draco taunted with a smug grin.

Blaise didn't reply and walked past the Head Girl, Head boy car to the edge of the train where he knew she would be staring out into the passing white endless hills and valleys. He wasn't sure what made him stop to watch her. It might of been the slight trembling of her shoulders as she cried softly, the lift of her hair in the winter rush of the train or the solemn look on her face.

Before the darker side of him could tease him about the romantic notions running through his mind Blaise was already grumbling to himself.

_I know, I'm totally pathetically, head over heels in love, hopelessly doomed to sphincster-ship for the rest of my life. And I don't care. _

"If you stand out here too long," he started when he was sure she'd stopped crying. She turned her head to look at him. "You'll get a cold."

She didn't speak as Blaise joined her outside, casting and additional warming charm on the space and a privacy charm. She smiled lightly and leaned against his shoulder. He swallowed and wrapped an arm around her slightly trembling shoulders.

"Thank you."

_Thank you for not saying anything._

"You're welcome," He replied. "Elena... don't you think... We should talk?"

"About?"

"About what happened, " He prompted. "You were terrified."

"You want to know what it feels like to have your soul ripped apart and sewn back together with another person's soul? Especially someone you hate."

It was then he looked at her. There was an icy coolness in her eyes and she locked eyes with him. He was right and helpless and she was scared and defenseless. Had they been anywhere else any other people, he would have kissed her then. But sadly none of those things applied to them and he didn't.

"It's like hell." She whispered.

"If I kissed you right now, would you be angry?"

He almost choked in embarrassment when the words he'd been thinking slipped from his mouth. He cursed mentally and hoped she hadn't heard him.

She did.

She blinked and laughed outright. There had been a jolt of warmth that went through her at the smooth cadence of his voice and the words he spoke, but knowing Blaise's love to tease her she couldn't help but laugh and blush. He really knew how to cheer her up.

"I'm a little high on painkilling charms and chemicals, so everything is funny." He winced at the dazed admission.

_That would explain her swimming eyes._

"But I have to say that would still be funny even if I wasn't high. I hope it wouldn't just stop at kissing."

He smirked playing along, "Well well, when did my goody-two-shoes of a friend become so devious?"

"Since she met a certain tall, dark, and handsome Slytherin that enjoys scaring the hell out of her with his rapid growth spurts."

He chuckled and shook his head but that was not reflecting the insane and ravaging butterflies in his stomach. Some how they'd mutated and grown to five and six times their normal sizes and were having a flying frenzy throughout his body. He swore he was going to pass out with the nervous jitter rocketing through him.

_Handsome? No wait tall, dark **and** handsome. That's good right?_

Noemi's voice popped up in his head, _HELL YES THAT'S GREAT!_

So he smirked at her and enjoyed her hesitant glance at him.

"You need to get away from him," He said she sighed and pushed a hand through her hair.

"I know, and I don't think anyone else but you knows it... you'll see what I mean when we get to the Malfoy mansion."

"I wish I could take you with me to Noemi's... she'd love to meet you."

She grinned, " I think I'd like to meet her as well."

He smiled, they would have had a blast together... and then an idea hit him, like lightning rushing through him and making him feel alive.

"You know that potion that's due when we get back..."

She blinked.

"That team project, Snape assigned us before break?"

She nodded.

"We have a very extensive potions lab at the Zabini manor," he said. "And it's Floo accessible..."

She blinked,"Why Blaise since when did you become so devious?"

He grinned at his genius and leaned down to be face to face with her.

"Since I met a certain beautiful, intelligent Ravenclaw Amazon that taught me not to take shit from anyone."

She laughed away the blush spreading across her cheeks and he watched in fascination as her tan returned a bit in her cheeks and her eyes glowed with a happiness Blaise hadn't seen in a while... She was beautiful and hegrinned back at her. There was hope for that same Elena to come back... not much but there was hope.

"Hey, Elena!" She ignored Malfoy's call in favor of stealing part of Blaise's chocolate bar.

"Yum," she said grinning cheekily up at him.

_This means war_.

He raised an eyebrow at her quirkiness and pulled it from her lips and ate it.

_Top that, _ he wanted to say but raised an eyebrow and gave her the sexiest smirk he could.

She flushed and her eyes shifted away from his face. He would have laughed if she hadn't knicked the rest of the chocolate in his hand. She laughed and flitted away like a butterfly and Blaise ran after her with a cumbersome and gigantic net. To say that it was very childish would be an understatement. To say it wasn't a distraction from the horror they would face upon arrival would be a lie. However, it was fun.

He would never forget the way her eyes lit up as Blaise pinned her against the ground and tickled her senselessly. The chocolate had long since dissolved in either her or his mouth and the mechanics of how it ended up in two different places were not something they were going to dwell on with Draco calling down the hallway for her.

"Alright, alright! I'm sorry~!" She cried and between suffocation and joy.

He loved seeing her that way, she was glowing with laughter and even when Blaise let her go and the laughter died down to small fits of giggles, the blush remained over her cheeks.

Without thinking, he leaned forward and kissed her lips. Her breath caught but she kissed back just as he pulled away and Draco came with in proper seeing distance. She stared at him with a flush bleeding from her neck and into her hair as it turned fiery red and the rest over her glowed with that beautiful caramel color it usually was.

He was sure that it was the best thing he would ever do.


	7. No Idea

___Here I am pain in hand._

_I am nothing now, but dust and sand._

I'm surprised you're still reading this because it only gets worse from here. It turns out that Blaise's plan did work and for those two wonderful weeks, he had her all to himself. They went out to eat, walked the beach, teased each other in the potions lab. The didn't talk about the kiss but there wasn't anything awkward about it after the red faded back to black and her eyes could meet his again. It felt more like it was supposed to happen. It was natural. But of course all good things must come to an end eventually, they knew that. That didn't mean they wouldn't drag it out or enjoy every possible moment they could.

* * *

Blaise heard her footsteps before the soft giggling. She'd been doing it for the last few days after all, coming to wake him up that is. And she'd managed to fail in her surprise attacks every time. He was a very selectively light sleeper after all and she was always so _loud _compared to the silence of the Zabini manor. Unfortunately, Noemi had been held up and wouldn't be coming until after she had to go back with her family, so Elena did not get to meet the sister Blaise loved so much. She did however meet his other three sisters, his stepfather, and his mother and finally understood why Blaise didn't really like coming home as much as he should have. She came to the same conclusions about his family that took him years to come to within a few hours.

_One,...two,...Three!_

She pounced and Blaise caught her mid-air to roll her over and into the blankets with him. She squeaked in joy and surprise as he grinned down at her, sitting up to look at her. The first time she'd pounced on him in his sleep, he wasn't prepared at all. Blaise hated pajamas, so unless it was an ungodly temperature or he was sharing the room with someone, he slept naked. You can only imagine how _that_ ended. She'd jumped on him just as he'd opened his eyes and landed square on top of him. He choked at the feeling of her entire body settling on top of him. She'd stared at his bare chest for a moment in awe, almost afraid to touch him before he'd regained his senses. When she sat up to greet him and tell him it was time to get up so they could go _play, _her soft weight shift back into his lap and he'd almost thrown her out of the bed in fear that she would realize he was naked and very much attracted to her.

He told her in an almost shaking voice, pulling the comforter higher around his waist, that he'd be down to breakfast in a minute and she'd vacated the room none the wiser of the hell she'd played on his desire for her. From that day on, he slept in at the very least boxer shorts just in case she'd decide not to jump on him but pull the blankets off him.

"No fair, how do you always know?"She pouted.

"It would help if you didn't always giggle..." He replied softly, pushing the wisps of her from her face and smirking down at her as the blush filled her face.

The black runes were officially visible along her neck like a sick tattoo but he payed no attention to them. Instead, he leaned down to kiss her forehead gently and inhale her scent. She hummed in delight beneath him and Blaise rolled to his feet as she lay there in his bed. She looked every bit of what he'd imagined except clothed. Her hair was tossled, her eyes were half open and staring up at him warmly. He was almost tempted to crawl back into bed and lay with her for a moment. It was one of those rare morning that he was wearing sweatpants instead of the boxer shorts that made her blush.

Anyway, he said something about a shower and headed towards the bathroom so they could start the day and finish the report that really only needed a few more sentences. Between the two of them, they'd finished the potion early technically and just waited to bottle, cap, and test it. Blaise to be the test subject after a lost game of strip poker.

He almost melted into a puddle of embarrassment and laughter at the thought of it.

It all started when Massimo, one of his best friends, came over with his girlfriend Claire to meet the girl that's had his best friend "hotter that Vulcan's forge." Elena laughed and shook his hand at the joke, Blaise was ready to kill him. After a few hours of swapping stories and waiting for Blaise's mother to leave them alone for longer than a few moments, Claire pulled out a deck of cards, announcing the group tradition of strip poker. If she'd had to play it before their friends would lay off and let she and Massimo date in peace, Elena would have to play for Massimo to lay off the "just jump her already" jokes. She shrugged and, for the sake of Blaise, agreed though she wasn't quite sure why she had to go through the rite of passage. It wasn't as if she and Blaise were dating...

Were they?

In the end Massimo made the guys lose down to our boxers while Elena and Claire remained fully clothed. Blaise knew that it was just part of the game to see what type of girl Elena was, how they'd started this tradition he couldn't really remember.

Luckily for the boys, Elena was kind enough or too embarrassed, to make them strip all the way down. If it had been in Claire's hands, who had no shame about seeing two fine Italian men strip in front of her, they would have been stripped completely and Blaise may have been scarred for life upon seeing his best friend and his bestfriend's girlfriend have sex on top of the table. Not to mention the in-trouser problem that had arisen at the mention of playing strip poker with Elena...

_Yeah... That wouldn't have turned out well. Nothing's awkward until you try to stay friends when you know best guy friend has a hard on for you._

Aside from that nothing really exciting happened sort of. Okay so going swimming at night in the lake by the Manor with Elena was pretty great but not overly so. Elena was the one who suggested they sneak out in the middle of the night to go swimming. She'd convinced him to do it and guide them through the small forest to where the water dove right in to the cold water and floated around on the surface, staring into the starry night, and enjoying each other's company. When the sun started rising they headed back in, dried off and fell asleep by the fire in the foyer. They were lucky they hadn't gotten sick.

He laughed a little turning off the hot water and stepping out of the shower to dry his hair and wrap a towel around his waist. She was still on the bed, staring off into nothing while the curse pulsed with her life on her shoulder. It was happening more and more frequently now. She would lay there as if in a trance. It'd started off lasting only a few moments that she couldn't remember and got longer. A few seconds, a minute...and hour. His fists clenched involuntary at the sight of it every time and he crossed the room to try and break through it like he'd done everytime before. He kissed her cheek gently and called her name softly and she blinked her eyes returned to normal and she sat up looking as lost as she had every time. The necklace that Draco had given her on Christmas jingled with the movement as she turned to look up at his face. It was a dog chain and tag that Malfoy had enchanted and given to his "fiancée" at Christmas. Blaise still wanted to kill him for that silver chain resting around her neck. She was forced to put it on and while Blaise was ready to kill Draco, she'd said that it only made her look adorable. He would never tell her that he'd heard her crying a few hours later, after she realized that it was an anchor for the curse and she couldn't get it off.

"How long was I out?" She asked.

"A few minutes, I was in the shower." Blaise said. "I'll remember next time to invite you to join me."

She flushed and laughed before getting off the bed to leave.

"Breakfast, food... _Chocolate_," she teased. "Don't take forever to get dressed okay?"

She left then and he couldn't help but laugh, slathering lotion on, pulling on clothes to follow her bare foot out of the room. She hadn't even made it to the stairs when he caught up with her and lifted her into the air. She squealed in surprise as he spun her around and laughed at her pathetic attempts to get out of his arms.

"Blaise!" She scolded as he set her down and headed down the steps before she could swat him.

"_Chocolate_," he teased and ran. She flew down the stairs after him and they arrived in the small room they took to eating meals together.

The official name was the Black Parlor, but Elena had always referred to it as the "Ocean Room" since it was decorated in shifting shades of blue and out the window they could see the Sea. She said it was her favorite room besides the library so they ate, barring guests and his mother's demands, in the "Ocean Room." A small pot of chocolate fondue was situated on the small table along with an assortment of fruits and pastries.

She claimed the seat to the left and he sat in the seat across from her. He opened the pot as she poured his coffee and poured herself tea.

"You're so British," he teased.

"No coffee for you," she said pulling the cup back before he could lift it from her hands.

He raised an eyebrow and smirked at her, "If you're not going to let me drink my coffee, then how else are you going to wake me up? Are you going to be my morning treat?"

She flushed, "Why do you always do that?"

"Because it works," he said taking the cup from her with a grin.

_That and I'm serious..._

"One day, I'm going to use your own techniques against you..." She promised dipping a strawberry into the pot.

"You're much to innocent for that," he said. "But if you do, it'll be an interesting thing to see."

She stuck her tongue out at him and he refrained from saying something along the lines of _putting that to better use _and smiled at her childishness. They talked the morning away and made plans for her last day of peace before three days back at home and back to Hogwartts. For the last morning they would be together, he got up early and went to wake her up. He floated down the steps and into her room to round the bed with a smile. She was a wild sleeper it seemed because the sheets were tangled in her legs and twisted around her sleeping form. He chose to ignore the shorts that were riding up her hip and the t-shirt that rode up her stomach in favor for watching her for awhile.

When he saw the light beginning to enter the room he stepped back to make a running jump into the bed.

"Wake Up!"

"AAAHHHH~!" She screamed bouncing into the air and flailing around.

She'd flailed around so much she almost fell out of the bed until Blaise pulled her back from the edge laughing a little.

"Sorry, I guess it's easier when you wake me up."

She sat up with her hair sleep tousled and drowsy eyes to look sleepily at him across the bed and then at the clock.

"It's dawn..." She said. "Why have you done this thing?"

He laughed as she detangled herself from the sheet and he pulled them aside for her.

"It's your last day of freedom," he pointed out.

"_Sleep~_..." she moaned and flopped back on the bed.

"Of course," he said pulling the blankets back over her. "Go back to sleep."

"Stay," she murmured before he got up to leave.

Unable to deny her he slip back against the headboard and under the comforter so she could reach him.

"You're hot...I can see why you sleep naked."

He flushed, he didn't think she'd realized.

"You knew?"

"Well upon pouncing on you I did," she said. "It would have been awkward to point it out then."

He laughed a little, "But you didn't get off."

"No I didn't."

He refused to look deeper into that admission but slid down to lay beside her. They fell asleep for a few hours before her second alarm went off and it was time to face the music. They ate breakfast together and went their separate ways. He owled to tell her that potion worked perfectly a few days before the end of break and it felt like an eternity before he was standing on Platform 9 and three quarters hugging Noemi goodbye and looking out for Elena's arrival.

She hugged him tightly, "You keep in touch alright? And keep trying Topolino, I'm sure she's a wonderful girl."

He nodded and kissed her cheek. Noemi knew the majority of the story, but he'd left out the fact that Elena was cursed and set to be married forcibly to an abusing bastard. He didn't know what made him not tell her, but he'd successfuly kept his mouth shut about the entire thing. Getting onto the train, he was a little worried that he hadn't seen Elena or heard her voice... He was always so aware of her presence after all, it was unnerving to say the least.

He found Hermione and the rest of the Golden Trio first but they hadn't seen her either. He knew where to look then, it wasn't all that far of a stretch after all. He'd searched at least half the sixth year portion of the train before he found the compartment and slid it open. She was lying there, staring off into space with tears rolling in a seemingly endless stream down the sides of her face;instead of helping her, Draco was glaring down at her, looming over her looking about ready to strike for her lack of reaction.

"Get up, I said!" He screeched drawing a hand back.

Blaise caught his wrist and held back a maddening urge to break it beyond even St. Mungo's repair. Draco whirled on him with steely grey eyes that quickly melter at the white hot fury blazing out from Blaise's blue giant colored orbs. He swore his heart stopped with fear. His arm lacked strength as Blaise pushed him aside to lift Elena off the bench.

"How long has she been like this?"

"What the bloody hell-"

"_How long has she been like this?_" Blaise growled.

Draco swallowed, "Since we got on the train."

Blaise said nothing more and moved to carry her out.

"Where the hell are you going with my fiancée?" He screeched after making sure his heart was working properly.

Blaise didn't answer but carried her to an empty compartment at the very end of the sixth year portion of the train. It was a half compartment meant for only one or two people and was usually used for people that refused to be near anyone else. During his first year, it had been the only compartment he'd rode in.

He opened the door and closed it shut behind him, sitting with her in his lap and rocking her gently as the tears continued to roll down her cheeks. She was conscious beyond the glassy orbs, much deeper than she'd been before. She never told him what happened, or how it felt, when she went under but from the flickering emotions in her eyes when she came back, he figured it may have been better not to ask.

"Elena, honey," he whispered softly stroking her hair and rocking her gently. "You have to come back now, hon. _Bella, Devi tornare adesso. Tornate adesso, per favore."_

He chanted those words to her, kissing her face gently and humming soothing songs to her, songs she loved. Songs they'd played together, for much longer than he was aware of. When she finally came to the train was about to pull into the Hogwarts station.

"How long was I out?" She asked.

He shook his head, "The entire train ride..."

She cursed. She'd tried to fight it and fought it hard, but it had snuck up on her and pulled her down. Smothering her under the weight of pain and her cursed existence, it had shoved her down and run its course. It had never done that before... then again she hadn't been without Blaise since it started and neither had she been with Malfoy for so long.

"We should hurry and change..." She said before saying anything else.

Blaise nodded sadly, "It was different this time... wasn't it?"

She nodded as she pulled her cloak around her and he pulled his own around his shoulders as they vacated the train. The air was frigid and cold and they'd managed to sneak into a quickly departing carriage before Draco could find them. The boats took them across the water and they vanished into the castle of Hogwarts. Blaise walked her to the Ravenclaw entrance and watched her enter before heading towards the dungeons. The last thing either of them needed was for Draco to show up unannounced.

When classes started up again, Blaise made sure to be with Elena as much as possible. The incidents were less frequent and shorter until the end of the year. Blaise hoped that it was a sign that she was getting better, but with the black runes rising up and nearly completely taking over her skin, he knew that was a hopeless thought. Still he loved her, and protected her as much as he possibly could.

It was nearing the end of the year, finals were in full swing and driving everyone crazy. He'd never seen so many people in the library at one time except for in fifth year. They had study groups that met together and studied late into the night, way past curfew, and of course they were productive. Between Hermione, Elena, and Blaise there Harry and Ron looked about ready to throw in the towel.

"I can't take much more of this... my brain is going to explode," Ron groaned.

Elena giggled a little bit as Rafael came back and took the seat beside Hermioine and lay the armfuls of snacks on the table they shared in the Room of Requirements. Books were stacked everywhere only adding to the extensive Library that the room had produced.

"If we want to get into that class we have to ace this test," Hermione said as Elena opened a chocolate bar only moments from when Blaise decided to steal it from her.

"Hey!" She cried indignantly, "That's mine!"

He bit into it slowly and moaned just to spite her. He loved doing that to her. When she was filled with an emotion, in this case indignation, the blush turned into caramel, her natural skin tone. She wouldn't be so pale or sickly looking anymore. She looked like she should without the curse. He loved her that way and that was the real reason he teased her so. He just wanted to see her smile.

"It tastes good too," he commented. "It's chocolate you know-Hey!"

She swiped his thermos of coffee from his hand and grinned.

"You wouldn't," he said assuringly. "You hate coffee."

"But don't you see Blaise," she cooed. "It's _chocolate_ flavored and that makes all the difference."

He expected her to unscrew the top and drink, as they all did. However, she tipped the thermos back and into her mouth and swallowed heartily until the container was empty. They all stared at her in amusement and shock as if she didn't quite understand what she'd just revealed. Blaise had been drinking from that thermos since they arrived.

She finished with a satisfied smirk, "An eye for an eye."

Blaise raised an eyebrow as she sat the thermos down and flipped the page.

"If you wanted to kiss me so badly," he said slowly smirking. "You could have said so."

She frowned and his smirk only got more hunter worthy as the blush started from the base of her neck and flourished upwards into that beautiful caramel color she was meant to be and her cheeks tinged red. Her mouth open and closed as if trying to find something to say, but nothing came out. She whirled on him, flushed.

"Tha-That's not- I-I didn't think..."

He smiled, "It's okay, Elena. We have plenty of time for you to admit how much you want to kiss me."

Her blush only got deeper as the entire table went up in laughter and the thermos refilled. He lifted it to his lips and drunk, never loosing eye contact with her.

"Stop teasing poor Elena," Rafael chuckled. "You know she's no good at this!"

"She'll learn," Blaise said setting the thermos down and going back to studying.

Elena flushed. She'd get him back one day, when he least expected it. She would learn, oh she would learn from the greatest and then he would be helpless! Helpless against her charm and wit and maybe one day she'd actually see him go red with embarrassment. Blaise had always seemed to be calm and collected no matter what happened she'd find out what would make him stumble one day and use it against him as pay back for all the times he'd embarrassed her. Didn't he know how she felt about him? Was he just teasing her with that knowledge or was he flirting with her? He was right, she wasn't good at it. She had never been in a position to be actually flirted with. She had plenty of experience fending off guys that felt the need to feel her up, but none that had tried to actively flirt with her.

Hell, she hadn't ever even gone on a date. She might as well have been as innocent as a newborn when it came to relationships, except for the fact that she had a maniac to deal with and a best friend that loved to tease her... She tried not to think about the fact that he'd kissed her but it didn't happen that way, instead a stolid sense of numbness washed over her and faded back into the constant aching throughout her system. It hurt less than it ever had before but it still hurt like hell.

"You okay?" Blaise asked as they got ready to sneak off to their respective Houses.

"Yeah," she said with a smile as the other left and they were left alone.

"I don't mean to antagonize you," Blaise said softly as they reached the door. "I'll stop if it bothers you so."

With bated breath he waited for her response, prepared to accept her decision. She turned around and hugged him tightly, embracing him closely, clinging to him.

"No, Blaise... you don't antagonize me." She said and he hugged her back rocking her gently and kissing the top of her lovingly.

"Good," he said. "I have a lot of fun watching you turn red."

She swatted his shoulder and pushed away from him.

"Mean person-"

"But you love me anyway."

She laughed and nodded. He would never be able to tell her how much the admission meant to him.

* * *

Blaise peered out the window feeling his stomach turn as he tried to stave off the memory of the summer before his final September 1st trip to Hogwarts. He wanted to dwell a little longer on the joy that had suffused his years before then and glared at the passing scenery, depressed by a sunny day. It felt like nature, the Earth, the Gods, and everything in his universe was taunting him with the knowledge that there was a special place in Hades for him for what he'd done and what he would have to do upon reaching the Hogwarts and trying to shuffle through another year of this.

With her so close, it would be painful, heart wrenching. There would be an all consuming agony that took over every time he saw her face and forced himself not to go to her. He didn't even want to think about how it would feel once he realized that, as usual, all their classes would be together with mutual friends and enemies. He had no idea how much fate had decided to wrench his arm behind his back for his decision.

No idea.


	8. Che sarà sarà

**Warning: Extremely long chapter ahead. Enjoy!**

* * *

_If I could take everything back_

_I would without a second thought_

If the fall would wash away your pain

_Stand with me in the rain_

_And we'll lose it all_

_Isn't there a way to make myself forget this?_ Blaise thought gazing out the window.

He chuckled a little. That would have meant that he didn't deserve to suffer, that he hadn't done it for a good cause. He did. He'd done it for her, to protect her, to help her the only way he felt he could. He'd done it out of love.

But this love wasn't sweet and kind, it was tears and pain, blood and sacrifice. It was bittersweet torture and it only got worse. While the memories comforted him to a degree, they taunted him all the same. Kind of like the taste of really good German chocolate cake when you're on a diet. It was so worth it, but made you feel guilty afterwards. He wanted to laugh, and almost though it would happen. He was comparing Elena to chocolate cake...

_Because that's always helped._

But she was. She was sweet and warm and inviting. He hadn't even dared to lay eyes on her when he climbed aboard for that very reason. He had to keep his distance or it would all come crumbling down.

"Tch," he scoffed.

It was already in rubble and he was being slowly crushed to death under the weight.

* * *

After the final exams were over and everyone was preparing to go home from the summer, Elena got an interesting owl from her family in America. They wanted her to come spend the summer with them saying something about a nice trip away from rainy old england and a chance to get the full tale of her years at Hogwarts. With Noemi gone on a long trip as a consultant for a fashion tour, Blaise had nowhere to really spend the June, July, and most of August with. He could have gone home, but at best he would have been trapped in his home or running around the fields all day everyday.

"Come with me," she'd said. "You've never been to America right? My cousins say they've planned a whole summer's worth of crazy for us...It'll be fun."

He agreed unable to say no. Of course her mother asked her why Draco wasn't coming along and it was quickly silenced by a "He wasn't invited."

She was fuming, Draco was pissed but obligated to spend the summer under his father's wing to prepare for their last year, get ready to take over the family business, and of course prepare for the wedding. They packed their things and stayed their last night in Italy at the Zabini Manor.

He laughed a little as Elena and Miss Miran Valencio chatted animatedly over whatever she was cooking up for them. Besides the rest of the servants, he, Elena, and Miran were the only people in the Zabini Manor. His mother had had the funeral for his step father a few days before he returned, his sisters were off somewhere, and his father... well who knew where _he_ was.

"Your girlfriend is a smart cookie, don't let her get away," Miran said tossing the dough and he coughed as Elena flushed.

"She's not my girlfriend," he said calmly.

"You don't have to be embarrassed, Blaise. I can see that you two are close... just don't let your sisters, let alone your mother find out about it."

He was going to protest again but her tone caught him off guard. Why would any of them care?

"We're not dating... she's my best friend." He said. "Besides what do they have to do with anything? They wouldn't care."

"Well... you're sisters would do everything in their power to give your girl hell," she said sprinkling oregano into the do among other things.

She decided that every recipe needed improvement and Blaise had loved her for it. His mother had nearly fired her, but Blaise insisted that since he was the only one that was ever consistently home to eat her cooking, he got to choose. He chose Miran. It had been the first time his mother had heard him speak to her for longer than a few words at a time. He was sure it was just the shock that had convinced her.

"Furthermore, your mother is trying to find you a girl to marry," she said. "I would suggest you set her straight before she brings some prissy pure blooded idiot to meet you."

Elena laughed, "Aw... is Blaise's mother trying to play matchmaker?"

"She'll bring back some gold digger that's just like her. I'd rather live long enough to see my kids grow before I had over my inheritance to a perfect stranger."

She laughed and Miran shrugged.

"I'm just warning you," she said. "I would say cart young Miss Elena off to the Ministry and get married before you two get out of school. You can have a proper ceremony after you've gotten your mother off you back."

Elena laughed and Blaise looked mortified. He should have been used to Miran's antics. After all she was the one who first inquired about his tastes in sex. She'd been worried when he hadn't shown any obvious interest in girls and had been so bold to say , "If you swing the other way, your secret is safe with me."

He'd sputtered and told her that he was very much attracted to women. When Elena had come to stay with him, Miran had almost had a heart attack.

"I'm sure your parents are trying to do the same,"Miran remarked to Elena. "You're too much of a good catch for someone to not be after you, so you should hurry up Blaise before someone else steals her away."

Blaise smirked, "But she's here with me."

Elena flushed, "Blaise!"

Miran turned around and nodded, "Quite, but you know how pure blood families are."

Elena smiled a little, "I know. I've already been betrothed of sorts."

"Well Blaise you'd better do something quick. Is he an ass?"

"Completely," he replied.

"Oh, then there's no competition."

Elena laughed as Miran slid the pizza in the oven. Elena got up to use the restroom and Miran turned to face him.

"You love her too much to let her go Blaise."

He smirked a little and shrugged, "It's not up to me."

"She loves you to much to go without a fight."

He flushed briefly.

"Not to mention you two are perfect for each other."

He sputtered, "Don't you think you're overstepping it a little bit? We're friends Miran."

She scoffed, "Because friends run around the city together, go swimming together in the middle of the night, share a bed for no good reason, they eat romantic meals together over looking the ocean..."

He cleared his throat.

"Friends don't sit that close either..."

He didn't turn his head to see what she was talking about. He hadn't realized that she had been sitting close enough to feel her all up his side. They'd always sat that close unless they were across the table from one another but then he could see her and he rarely removed his eyes from hers. He sighed at Miran's smile. She was right and there wasn't anything he could say as Elena chose that moment to come back and slide up on her stool beside Blaise. He closed his eyes as her warmth pressed along his side.

"What'd I miss?"

"I was just explaining how perfect you two would be together," Miran said flippantly, turning back to her pizza ingredients.

Elena laughed and Blaise just gave up.

"I was beginning to think what our children would look like with your eyes..."

"Or yours?" She asked in between a giggle. "And all the curls..."

"Sounds adorable," Miran said. "When you two planning on starting that?"

"Hmm... how fast is that pizza gonna be done? Gotta eat before such activity after all."

Elena flushed and fell silent at Blaise's jibe. Miran laughed.

"I think you've mortified the poor girl."

Mortified? No, she was anything but mortified. If anything she was letting the idea roll around in her mind. _Roll..._oh dear. The word roll was not something her imagination needed to _roll _ with. She'd already felt the hardness of his body beneath her, the idea of it above her, on top of her while they rolled around in the sheets in some passionate dance...She swallowed hard and shook her head clear of that thought and was so thankful that Blaise had not learned Occlumency.

"You look like the idea appeals to you..." Blaise commented reading the embarrassed and shocked look on her face.

"Shut up!"

Miran and Blaise laughed. They stayed in the large kitchen and ate with Miran enjoying the conversation until it was time to sleep if they meant to have enough energy to deal with her cousins and whatever they had planned. Elena skipped her way down the stairs to the room that she used when she stayed with them after saying goodnight and couldn't say why she tossed and turned and woke up much more tangled in her sheets that usual.

When Blaise came in to wake her, she was tossing in her sleep writhing around her sleep and mumbling. Her body was sweaty and she looked as if she had a fever though the room was perfectly cool.

"Elena," he called. "_svegliarsi, __miele._"

"_Blaise_," she moaned out turning over as he reached out to her.

Her skin was feverish as he shook her gently.

"Wake up," he said and her eyes flew open and she sat up with a scream in a whirlwind of curly black hair.

He blinked as she tried to catch her breath and looked at him with wide and hazy eyes. They were soft, warm, and dark even in the light.

"Blaise," she said as if he shouldn't be there.

"You alright? You looked like you were having a nightmare."

She refused to blush but shook her head, "I'm fine."

That had been so far from a nightmare it scared her. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she felt wet all over, hot and sticky. He got up running a hand through her hair.

"Breakfast is ready, I'll wait for you in the Ocean Room."

She smiled, "You called it the Ocean Room..."

He blinked, "I suppose... I did."

She grinned in triumph and detangled her legs from the sheets to hop out of bed. She went into the bathroom to hurry and shower refusing to blush at the stickiness between her legs as she hopped in, showered, and got dressed for the weather in good old Miami, Florida: shorts and a tank. She made it to breakfast almost toppling herself out of the chair with excitement.

"I can't wait for you to meet them! It's going to be so much fun! No Draco, no Mom, no worries for the rest of the summer!"

He grinned at her excitement and they finished breakfast fairly quickly. The dishes vanished before their eyes and they headed down to the main fireplace to Floo across the world. Blaise stepped in.

"Angelina Romano," she told him. "5345 Sunset Drive. Miami Florida."

He repeated it and vanished in a flourish of green fire.

Now Angelina Romano was a fairly successful 20 year old woman. She worked for the American branch of the Ministry of Magic and was quite good at her job. She took care of her two sisters Marie and Nikita who were both going on their final year of wizarding schooling as well. She was level-headed and even though she lived in the wizarding world, somethings still surprised her.

"Sis'! There's an amazingly tall, dark, and handsome Italian man walking out of our fireplace!" Nikita called.

She frowned and came out of the kitchen and lo and behold he was climbing out of their fireplace with a bag on his back. He smiled nervously at them.

"Hi... you must be Angelina..." He said and the three women stared at him with disbelief.

"Are you Adonis?" Marie asked.

Nikita laughed at the uncomfortable expression on his face.

"No... I'm not. I'm-"

The fireplace roared with Elena's appearance and she grinned.

"I'm home!" She called.

"_Topolina!_"Angelina cheered as she came out of the fireplace to hug her three cousins tightly. Blaise looked on in interest as Nikita and Marie continued to look at him in interest.

"It's nice to see you're not too banged up..."

She laughed and kissed her cheek, "Yes of course."

" 'Lena,"Nikita started. "Who is this _Adonis _you brought with you?"

"Is he single?" Marie asked.

"Is he related to us?" Nikita cut in.

"Is he your boyfriend?" They teased.

The twins had always been that way and Blaise laughed at their antics.

"I'm Blaise. Blaise Zabini, I'm a friend from school." He said holding out a hand to shake.

"_This _ is Blaise?" They nearly screeched in confusion.

"Yes... What did you expect?" Elena asked.

"They know who I am then?" Blaise asked.

"Of course, if you have Noemi, I have these three..."

He nodded and smiled at them as they stuttered out their indignation.

"Y-You never said he was tall?"

"Or hot?"

"He's HOT!"

Elena was a little amused that he had the nerve to look uncomfortable with them staring up at him.

"You had better jump on that," Nikita said. "I love you cuz' but if you don't want him I'll take him."

She laughed, "Long distance never works out and you know it."

She sighed. Elena was right, "Well how about a very passionate summer filled with quickies in broom closet and possibly some sex on the beach?"

He sputtered, "Are they always like this?"

"Nope," she said. "I'm actually surprised at how tame their being."

He looked at her as if she'd grown two heads.

"We'll show you to the room you'll be staying in!" The twins volunteered pulling him by the arms down the hallway. He looked at Elena with a desperate look and she shrugged as they pulled him along and Angelina laughed.

"Why didn't you say he was hot?" Angelina asked.

"He's my best friend," she supplied. "Besides, if I had nothing would have changed."

Angelina conceded her that point as the twins came back. Elena had a feeling that Blaise would never forgive her if she kept leaving him alone with her cousins. If he was a Lord of teasing, they had to be Queens, after all they'd had all the practice they'd need in life on Elena since they were kids. Elena had never seemed to pick up the skill.

"Elena, please, please, my dear cousin tell me you are at least _trying_ to jump on that."

She laughed, "He's my best friend and I'm supposedly getting married-"

"That's bullshit and you know it!" Nikita said. "What's the real reason? Huh? We all know you have no intention, curse or not, of marrying the Malfoy bastard."

"So what is it? Is he gay?"

"Not that I know of."

"Well is he deformed? Is he crazy? What's wrong with him the reason you're sticking to this "we're just friends bullshit." "

"I've been wondering the same thing," Blaise said from the hallway.

"So what's wrong with you?" Marie asked with absolutely no shame. Elena didn't even think either of the twins knew what that was.

"Good question," Blaise said with a mischievous glint in his eyes as he looked at Elena. "What's wrong with me Elena?"

She flushed, "Nothing's wrong with you-"

"So why won't you date me?" He asked smirking as she started squirming.

The three sisters looked on in amazement. They'd never seen Elena act like that before.

"You're my best friend," she tried weakly.

"Wrong answer," he said. "But that's okay. You'll tell me when you're ready."

She didn't respond and her cousins laughed.

"Holy crap, Elena! What did you do?" Nikita asked.

"Please teach me," Marie said. "I want a hot guy to fall in love with me that deeply."

She was red by then and it was bleeding into every part of her now. Her hair had turned red, her eyes, her cheeks.

"Now you two see here," she scolded. "I haven't done anything! I don't know what you're talking about!"

"But Blaise loves you," Angelina said. "Right?"

"Right," he replied.

"That's enough picking on me for one day thank you!" Elena declared. "What is the plan for the summer?"

They dropped it but the other four looked at each other with mischievous glints in their eyes. They'd just found a new ally for keeping Elena's spirits up.

"We just tease you out of love."

"Especially Blaise," Nikita said and before Elena could say anything, Marie had pulled out a Calendar and began explaining the marked dates.

"There's a concert we have tickets to, a few parties we're going to, of course Quidditch games, soccer games, more parties, a banquet which we have to go shopping for. Concert, party, concert, party."

They glanced at Blaise who looked like he was ready for a run on the beach.

"Please tell me you brought party clothes?" Nikita asked the pair.

Elena and Blaise blinked, "Uh... no."

Nikita huffed. "Damn it."

Marie was on the phone calling up a few guy friends and friends a like to come over and help this crisis. How did neither of them bring party clothes? Elena rolled her eyes. It was Miami, Florida. If the party wasn't inside, it was outside and all that required was a swim suit. She hoped that they weren't going to try and make her wear a bikini again. That was the last thing any of them needed.

They did, and this time they succeeded. They knew it was because they had a new ally in Blaise that teased her about it. The first concert they went to was Rihanna and Britney Spears and it seemed more about the dancing than actually listening. There really wasn't much to explain about that since it was far too dark to really see what was going on around him. The Quidditch game was amazing.

Angelina had a friend on the winning team and they got to take a picture and have it autographed by the whole team. Elena had been bouncing around ever since they got there. It was her favorite American team after all. Blaise could only smile at her enthusiasm and watch her while being watched by her cousins. The summer was rushing towards the end and as the weeks passed on, Blaise was beginning to wonder if he could really do this? For all his good intentions, he wondered if he had the strength to really let his angel go.

_This isn't going to end well..._

It was the last week that they were going to be there. The last night was the next one and he couldn't sleep. They'd been going to the party the next night and heading back to Italy for the rest of the summer the next afternoon. Nikita and Marie had still kept up the guise of being attracted to him, but he could see through it. They loved their cousin and had pulled him aside some night after a few weeks of being there.

"If you hurt Topolina," Nikita said.

"We'll kill you and make it look like an accident."

"Be glad it's us and not her brother, or her father."

Blaise frowned, "Her father?"

The twins blinked and wore the distinct expression of two people that had said something that they shouldn't have said. But they din't say anything about it and went back to trying to determine his intentions and affections for their cousin.

"I love her," Blaise said. "And that's why I'm here."

Nikita frowned, "What do you mean? What are you planning to do?"

He told them what he was going to do and they looked somewhere in between mortified and impressed. It wasn't as if they hadn't known that Blaise cared for their dear cousin. Everyone but she saw that.

"I look forward to having you as part of the family." Marie said and they hugged him tightly.

For all his good intentions, and his planning, he'd been blind to one crucial fact: Elena loved him too. It wouldn't take long for them to figure that out and for the two to get together. They hadn't spoken much else about it and continued on with the teasing and the flirting all the way up until the last week. Blaise had gone outside to watch the waves wash up on the shore and be alone with his own thoughts. Marie and Nikita had invited their boyfriends and a few other friends to hang out for a while. He could hear them laughing inside, more specifically he could hear Elena laughing and he closed his eyes to absorb the sound of her happiness and the waves. It was all so calming, he wished it would stay that way forever.

They'd spent her birthday together. The twins had something to do during the day and Angelina had to work but Elena and Blaise had toured around Miami for a while, stopped off to eat and got ice cream and a cupcake to sing Happy Birthday over in the park. The people walking around the park had giggled and pointed as he teased her. Murmurs of how cute they were together echoed around the park and made her blush. They had been in a joyous revelry the entire summer break and it was going to end soon.

Elena stuck her head out the glass sliding doors to call him in from his isolation, "Hey Blaise, we're going to make food are you hungry?"

He turned to her and stood smiling, "Starved."

He wasn't really hungry. He felt sick with the coming tragedy he was going to bestow on their lives, but he smiled and at anyway. When she asked him if something was wrong he'd said, "Only the fact that we haven't kissed this entire break."

She huffed and grumbled about him deflecting her questions and puffed her cheeks. He grinned and kissed her cheek making her gasp and gawk at him.

"I could kiss you on the lips next time if you'd like."

She puffed up her cheeks and went back to eating in a disgruntled and embarrassed silence. Night washed over them again and before Blaise knew it, it was the last day of happiness. Nikita and Marie started getting around when the sun went down. Blaise got carted off to help set up for the party with their boyfriends and let them get ready in peace.

"So... you're the guy that's dating Elena right?"

He grimaced, "No we're not dating."

"Then you want to date her."

"Yes."

There really wasn't anything else to say about it. Evan and Quillan were cool guys with a penchant for mischief as their girlfriends were. They teased Elena almost as mercilessly as their girlfriends did. He had a sneaking suspicion that the'd known each other for a long time.

"I'm not wearing that-"

"You are," Nikita said laying the piece of clothing down on the bed. "And we won't even have to force you."

Marie pulled outhe proper heels to go with it and grinned at her. Elena crossed her arms.

"Why is that?"

"Because you want Blaise to stop treating you like a friend."

"Because you want to jump all over that-"

"Because you love him and you're tired of being just a friend to him. You're going to wear that because you want his attention."

Elena didn't say anything, but she didn't have to. The twins left the room and she glared at it. They were right and as much as she prided herself as one who didn't play those games, there was a time and a place for them.

Marie and Nikita were fixing their eyeliner when Elena came out and the click-clack of heels announced her arrival in the bathroom.

"Whoo~! Sexy~!"

The music was pumping through the room as Blaise, Evan, and Quillan hung out on the edges near the bar sipping water as the music kicked up and Evan nudged him.

"Over there," he said pointing towards the entrance where Nikita and Marie were descending into the crowd.

Behind them there was a part of him that knew it was Elena but he didn't really believe it. She was too... too something that he could place. Her hair was a sleeker version of her normal curls and she was wrapped in some skin tight halter top and hot pants, fishnets and heels that made her legs look even more to die for than they already was. He swallowed hard as Evan waved them over and the girls made their way through the party.

"What type of spell did you cast on her to make her wear that?" Evan asked.

"No spell needed, she got dressed of her own accord." Nikita said. "Did we do good, Blaise?"

He smirked a little and looked her over. His gaze dragged over her leaning on the counter of the bar and a rush of heat rushed through them both as he met her eyes.

"Yeah," he almost breathed. "Very good."

Nikita rolled her eyes and grabbed Evan.

"Time to dance!" She declared and dragged them onto the floor as another song started and Elena gave Blase a look that said come dance with me but he watched her walk past him and followed her through the crowd happy to find that she stayed close enough for him to see her. "Move Shake Drop" began to play and he couldn't help but shift uncomfortably but didn't dare stop watching when she danced. He almost felt guilty that he was watching her like this, but decided it didn't matter. She was working up a sweat and it wouldn't be long until guys would notice it either.

He decided to dig his own grave and get up from his seat and make his way to her as another guy had just gotten the same idea. He laced his arm around her waist and pulled her close to him.

"Dance with me," he said.

She nodded almost breathless as a remix of "Push" by Enrique Inglesias started to play. She couldn't say what took over her but having him so close to her made her loose all inhibition. She was hot and sweaty, there was no telling what type of drink had been spilt on her at one point but it didn't matter. If he didn't care, she didn't either. It didn't take long for them to start panting and a sense of attraction covered them. Every roll of the hips and bounce was a competition to see who would give in first. Were they friends or was it something else? It was "Freakum Dress" that was the last song. Blaise had lost.

She'd lost her mind, grinding against him. She'd spun around and dropped down and somehow he'd kept up with her no matter what she did. She felt perfect against him. The sprinklers had gone off or someone had set they off and now they were wet and rocking against each other. She didn't know how much more she could take when Blaise pulled her with him across the floor to a dark corner and trapped her against the war, silencing her with an open mouth kiss that she returned with as much passion as she'd danced with, maybe more. Instead of the solid state numbness, there was a warmness and maddening electricity running through her when he backed her up against the wall and lifted her up so she could wrap her legs around him.

He groaned as part of them were still moving in time with the music and making it impossible to think about how bad of an idea this is. She cried out in some mix of surprise and desire as he attacked her neck with open mouth kisses and nips along her pulse line.

"_Blaise_," she moaned clinging to him. "_Oh,Blaise..._"

"I love you," he breathed in her ear as they started to breath and come down from the frantic high they'd ascended to. "I love you,I love you so much."

She couldn't speak as he smothered her words with his lips still mumbling words of love and adoration. It wasn't until she felt wetness drop onto her cheek as he pulled her off and stepped back. He was crying looking at her, licking his lips and savoring the taste of her mouth and skin. She looked at him with those eyes he loved, full of confusion. She hadn't heard a word he'd said, he'd said it too softly for her to hear. At least that was what he'd intended but she heard him.

He loved her, so why was he crying.

He kissed her again, robbing her of her thoughts and breath in one fail swoop and rushed through the part faster than she could follow.

"Blaise wait!"

Marie and Nikita said nothing watching him rush up the stairs and out of the party and Elena pushed through the crowd after him, screming after him to wait. But he didn't hear her and rushed off towards Angelina's home and grabbed his bag, a handful of Floo powder and screamed.

"Malfoy Manor!" He vanished into a blaze of green fire just as Elena made it up the stairs. He was gone and she'd had no idea where he'd gone. Where could he have gone?

Draco lounged on the couch and smirked as Blaise stepped out of his fireplace. He'd knew it was only a manner of time.

"Hello Zabini," he said.

"What is it that you want Malfoy? What do you want to stop torturing her?"

Draco didn't speak but Blaise continued.

"You already have her, isn't that enough? Why must to you torture her too?"

"To make you suffer," he replied.

"What do you want?" Blaise asked. Screw the Zabini way and all that bullshit. Malfoy wanted the upper hand? Blaise would give him the upper hand, or at least a sense of it. "What would I have to give you to make you stop?"

He smirked, "I'd thought you'd never ask..."

_The slimy little git..._

_"I want you to stay away from her_," is what Draco said. Blaise had hoped against hope that it wasn't what was going to happen. Hoped against common sense that there would be something else he wanted. A painting, homework, anything, but he knew that it was what it would come down to.

"Deal."

He smirked and a piece of parchment appeared before him. A magical and binding contract.

"I knew this would come to be so I had it drafted." Draco sai.

"You're agreeing to this much easier than I thought."

"With you out of the way, the curse will work its way through her system much faster than it had before. Hell before Christmas break I won't even need the influence of the curse to make her putty in my hands."

Blaise swallowed, he'd known that too. If he stayed with her, she'd die of agony and disrespect decades before she was meant to... If he left her side, the Elena he loved, the happy smiling one, would be lost forever and there was no telling what type of slimy disrespect Malfoy would subject her to. But even so, there was a chance that she, with all her strength, would still fight it. Somehow, she would still be the Elena he loved and adored and that was the only thing he could have hoped for. He added in "any physical, mental,or spiritual harm magical or otherwise" and "any unwanted contact" into the terms of the contract.

Draco signed first, he signed afterwards and he felt the binding as soon as he'd finished his signature and shuddered at the col feeling racing through him. In short, he could not engage in conversation, he could not speak to her, he could not even pretend that he knew her all for the sake of a chance that she would not die because of him and that she would be alright. He knew that when e arrived home there would be a copy of the contract to keep as a reminder and an anchor for when it felt too much to bear.

"Great doing business with you, Zabini. I'll make sure to tell my fiancée that you said goodbye when she comes back from her trip."

He glared at Malfoy and turned back to the fire stepping into the fireplace with a handful of Floo Powder.

"You may think this is over Malfoy," he said softly. "But it's not."

"Why would you say that? You're out of the way aren't you?"

He almost laughed. Yes he was out of the way, he suffered with her and without her but at least she would not have to suffer as much.

"You haven't met her family."

Draco didn't say anything and before he could ask what that meant, Blaise yelled out a non descript address in Venice, Italy and marched out of the large fireplace at the bottom of the stairs. It was raining outside he could hear that and he climbed the stairs to knock on door 513.

"Coming!" She called from the other side of the door.

The sound of soap operas and cooking dinner came from the other side as the doors unlocked and Noemi opened the door.

"Topolino? Wha...What are you doing here? You're not supossed to be-"

Her voice broke off when he stepped in and hugged her tightly. His shoulders were trembling and he was wet with sweat, rain, and the deep darkness of despair. Just for a moment he needed to hug her and be held. She understood and wrapped her arms around him not minding the smell of party and Floo Powder all over him. She was sure he'd explain soon enough why he was trembling but not cold, sobbing but not crying.

"Blaise," she said softly. "Come inside it'll be alright?"

He nodded silently. It would be alright. It had to be, he didn't have a choice.

Elena stared into the fireplace for a long time, expecting him to come back and explain. But he never did. When she was ready to leave, she hugged and kissed her family tightly before going to the Zabini Manor. Miran told her that he wasn't there and wouldn't be there for the rest of the summer. She'd even gone to the Malfoy Manor only to find Draco sitting on the chair and laughing as she asked him about Blaise's whereabouts.

"Worrying about another man while your husband is right here?"

She growled at him, "Spare me. You know where he is."

"If you must know, he probably went to see his Squib wench of a sister, Noemi."

She drew her wand and pressed it against his throat.

"Do not... test me Malfoy. You will not speak of Noemi in that way again."

He smirked and looked at her, up the length of her wand.

"Or you'll what? Curse me?"

She huffed and stormed back to the fireplace and home. She wrote a letter to him hoping that it her dear Nimue, a beautiful Eurasian Eagle Owl with black and chocolate brown feathers, would find him.

"Please Nimue, can you find him?"

She hooted and few out the window clutching letter in her claws and soaring off into the sky.

Blaise came out of the shower later that night and dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt, sitting on the couch with his sister as she finished making dinner and his hair still dripped around his shoulders.

"What happened Blaise?"

"I let her go," he replied. "I had to Noemi... I had to."

She frowned and sat back watching him and listening as he explained it to her. Everything from the curse, the party, and the contract. When he was done he looked so lost, so disgusted with himself she could help but hug him.

"_Aiutati che il ciel ti aiuta._ _Che sarà sarà e Breve orazione penetra." _She said sullenly, holding him tightly. "You did what you thought was right Blaise and all you can do now is hope that there is a better life waiting for you beyond the pain. A better life waiting for her as well."

He nodded, "I just want it to stop hurting her. I want her to be happy. Is that too much to ask?"

She sighed and shook her head.

"No Topolino," she whispered. "It's not too much to ask."

But Blaise felt as if he didn't ask hard enough when the familiar owl pecked on his sister's window with a letter from Elena. He welcomed the bird who rubbed her head against him with affection. Nimue had always liked him and almost pecked Draco's eyes out. He wondered if they were just so in tune when Elena first received Nimue or if it was a cultivated relationship.

"I suppose you're going to stay here until I take it, huh?" He asked her running his hands gently over her feathers.

She hooted and flapped her wings asking him to take the letter but he couldn't.

"Go home, Nimue," he whispered softly and opened the window.

"Won't you are least take the letter?" Noemi asked from the table. "She did fly all this way."

He sighed and as tempting as it was to take the letter, he couldn't. He refused. It was no doubt filled with words that would kill his resolve and have him flying across the skies to be with her again.

"Go home," he repeated but Nimue stared at him not bothering to do anything but swoop over the table, drop it in the middle and swoop out of the window.

_She's just as stubborn as her owner,_ he thought and sat down. He made a move to take the letter and throw it away but Noemi snatched it up first.

"If you're not going to read it, I am." She said. Blaise sighed and managed a whole slice of bread before his guilt got the better of him and he couldn't eat anymore.

Noemi opened the letter just as he stood to put his food away with the hope that his raging metabolism would eventually win against his agony and shuffled off to his room to go back to sleep. Staying conscious seemed like too much of a trial and he'd been through enough. His head had barely hit the pillow when Noemi finished reading the letter. Her eyes burned and ached for the girl that may have never understood why Blaise would do the things he was going to do.

A week passed like that with Blaise barely eating anything and moping about the apartment. When he wasn't moping, he was running around the block around the city, swimming in the ocean trying to keep himself exhausted that Noemi wouldn't be able to tell him what the letter said. He ate more because of the activity and may have beefed up a little bit but it wasn't anything that Noemi was going to point out. She knew the pattern and when the morning of September 1st came he woke up minutes before Noemi came in to wake him.

"Blaise."

"Yeah?" He whispered afraid of what she was about to say.

"It's time."

He sighed and pushed himself out of bed, repacking his trunk and getting ready to go. His uniform stashed in bag on his shoulder. He managed a whole bowl of oatmeal without needing to go running first. They went Floo Powder to a station in London and walked into King's Cross Station. It had the nerve to be the one sunny day in September on September the 1st, one of the worst days of his life.

Noemi hugged him, "_Siate forti_. You know how to contact me anytime you need to."

"I'll try," he said softly and let her go, rushing onto the train to vanish in the sea of students and claim the almost unknown compartment and opened the letter that had been waiting for him on his dresser back home. Miran had sent it to him at Noemi's along with a very angry scolding about how Elena had come to see him and he wasn't there to greet her. He'd never hear the end of it when she found out what he'd done.

_Congratulations Mr. Blaise Zabini, you have been selected as Head Boy for this year's graduating Hogwarts class... Your duties are as follows..._

He groaned as if his life couldn't get worse. He swore the Fates were laughing at him for his decision as he grabbed his bag and headed towards the Head Car. He could hear sounds of congratulations and screams from inside the car.

"I'm not sure what was so shocking about it? You already knew you were going to get it," Ron said.

He heard Elena's laugh and decided against it. It's not as though anyone else knew he was Head Boy and no one would have to know until they reached the Grand Hall. Hermione was Head Girl? Great, he could do that. He and Hermione got along just fine. He returned to his compartment and glared out the window, somewhere in between raving mad and horribly depressed. He hadn't even bought chocolate when the trolley came by.


	9. Perso Senza Di Te

_I loved to love you_  
_And I still do..._  
_Who am I now, without you?_

The train ride was shorter than he expected and it seemed like the ride that had always taken forever, ended in seconds and he was sitting at the Slytherin Table in the Grand Hall before he knew. Milicent Bullstrode, a good friend of his, took a seat across from him. Like many of his friends in Slytherin they had a mutual friend (thought not so mutual now) in Elena. She noticed the expression on his face that shouldn't have been there.

"What's wrong, Blaise?" She started. "You missing your hourly dose of Elena?"

He didn't reply but pushed his plate away from him unable to stomach anything at the moment as Malfoy took the seat besides Milicent with a grin.

"Won't this be a great year?" He asked with the smug chipperness that Blaise wanted to beat out of him.

He didn't say anything but Milicent took the words right out of his mouth.

"Don't be such a git Malfoy," she said as Dumbledor called the Hall to attention.

"As the events of the past summer have stirred the Wizarding World so, there are a few things that will change this year and will be a part of the Hogwarts tradition for years to come. Of course the majority of these traditions will directly affect the seventh years more than the others."

Blaise sighed twirling his fork in the mashed potatoes that he couldn't seem to be able to stomach. He knew he needed to eat, his stomach growled in rebellion but he just didn't have the heart to. As for the events of the summer, the whole of the threat to the entire Wizarding World had fallen sometime before late August officially putting Harry Potter's name up among the stars.

"The Head Boy and Girl will be telling you all about it. Speaking of them, it's best I should announce them shouldn't I? This year's Head Boy will be a boy that many of you may not know given his quiet nature..."

Draco smirked ready to stand, though he found it odd. He was anything but quiet about anything but his academics. He grinned only to be shot down when four syllables that were not his own were said.

"Blaise Zabini of the Slytherin House!"

He raised a hand with less enthusiasm than everyone expected. Cheers went up, the majority of them being from girl who'd seen him around or people he'd met through Elena. Even Elena was cheering and probably cheering the loudest.

"It seems that Mr. Zabini is quite shy." Laughter rippled across the room as he continued, "This year's Head Girl, though I'm sure you all know who it is she is after all fairly infamous."

Blaise mouthed _Hermione Granger_ in time with the name that would haunt his life forever.

"Ms. Elena Valentin of the Ravenclaw house."

His entire body went cold as Draco's eyes widened and he glared at Blaise. Blaise whirled around to see Elena standing, flushed and bowing in the screams of approval going up around the room. In the whirl of excitement, their eyes met and she couldn't understand why he was so terrified. He swung out of his seat and bolted out of the Great Hall, leaving the majority of the Great Hall stunned. While they may not have known Blaise by name, they knew him as the tall dark man that was probably the closest to dating Elena as anyone would get. If they weren't dating, they should have been. They couldn't understand why he would react like that.

Dinner ended and the professors swept out as the prefects guided the students to their houses. Blaise paced the floor in Dumbledore's office. How could he do this? Wasn't the one that said that Blaise should stay away from Elena?

The door slid open and he whirled on the man.

"Professor, what the bloody hell were you thinking?" Blaise shrieked in panic.

He blinked coming around the room to his desk, "Well Mr. Zabini I believe that's as many words as I've ever heard you say at one time. Would you like some chocolate, Ms. Valentin tells me you have quite the soft spot for it."

"Bugger your bloody chocolate!" he growled. "Why are you doing this?"

"I would have thought it obvious."

"To taunt me? Is that what this is?"

"I take no joy in torturing students."

"I beg to differ," he huffed. "Why have you done this? Are you insane? You've finally lost all your marbles haven't you?"

Dumbledore smiled a little as Fawkes swooped down onto Blaise's shoulder.

"It is possible that I have but the decision has nothing to do with my mental stability."

"What the bloody hell does that mean? You're the Headmaster for Merlin's sake!"

"It is a matter of your and Ms. Valentin's academic record."

"I'm sure Granger has a comparable record or Potter?"

"This is true, but speaking of mental stability I do not think that Mr. Potter is the wisest choice. Ms. Granger has quite a record but not the other qualifications of being Head Girl."

"But why _me?_" Blaise asked. "Of all the bloody students that have the record why _me?_"

"It isn't obvious?"

He screamed in frustration causing Fawkes to flutter away in Blaise's furry.

"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM? _You_ told me to stay away from her! _You_ said it would be safer for her! And it is safer for her! I resigned myself to the fact that I couldn't be with her anymore and you knew! You _knew _what I planned to do! I know you did and you know what would happen if I didn't! Why are you doing this to me? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?"

He was almost saddened by how much confusion and turmoil his student was going through because of this.

"You love her," he said as more of a statement than a question, as if it was the answer to all his questions.

Blaise had no idea that it really was the answer to all his questions.

"YES!" He yelled. "Why do you think I did it? Because she didn't matter to me? Signing that damn contract had to be the hardest thing I have ever done and you want me to undo all that because of some stupid Hogwarts tradition? Find another Head Boy!"

The door opened with Elena as Dumbledore spoke, "It is either you or Mr. Malfoy."

If Blaise could look anymore hopeless, it may have killed him. Elena came to him and he dodged her attempt at touching him. He couldn't do this at the moment. He just couldn't. Dumbledore gave them the list of their duties and Dobby lead them up to the Head Dorm where Sir Galen Romano of Italy told them that they would have different passwords and any visitor besides the Head Master and staff would need both passwords to enter.

"_Gabbia d'oro_," she told him, not really caring if Blaise knew her password.

"_Perso senza di te,_" He whispered and entered. He didn't really see the beauty of the rooms they were given but walked into his own room, locked the door, cast a silencing charm, and screamed until he couldn't anymore.

How was he supposed to make it through this year?

* * *

Somehow, days passed this way. They managed communication through presentation to the prefects they were supposed to supervise. In honor of the defeat of Voldemort, Dumbledore decided to add different festivities to the year. Graduation was a ways off, N.E.W.T.S. would be around then too in May sometime before Graduation when they would be recruited and would have to apply for positions to work in or to further their studies. In addition to those arrangements, there was the Christmas Ball, the Valentine's Day affair, The Halloween ball, and a few other fun events and clubs to start through out the year... Like a school Newspaper. It was an odd thing to think about but something that Dumbledore suggested.

After every Prefect meeting, Elena would stop Blaise and try to talk with him but he'd only look at her, pull free, and disappear until way past curfew. He'd take the patrol shifts that coincided with the time she usually fell asleep, in class he'd sit in the furthest possible seat from her, he wouldn't go to meals for more than a few minutes to grab something to eat before vanishing into the Room of Requirements, the Library, or any other obscure place that he could go and avoid her. She was getting sick of it to say the least. There were nights that she would stay up until the end of the shift, but with the curse weighing so heavily on her and without the usual dose of warmth he gave her by being in her presence, she hadn't the energy to stay up and was usually asleep by the time he came back.

He'd wrap her up in the robe she wore before bed and levitated her into her room to slide her under the blankets. When he'd charmed her lights off and the covers over her, he slipped out of the room. That was as much contact as either of them got for months and it was starting to show. Blaise looked more and more haggard, saying less than he ever had before. Elena looked on the edge of losing her mind or dying. It depended on what they were doing. When Elena attended to her Head Duties with Blaise dutifully silent and a million miles away from her thought beside her, she looked as if the curse had taken a bigger toll on her than anyone cared to admit. The runes were creeping around her neck now and her body was getting weaker.

Blaise would never forget the day he'd noticed it-the thought of it made him sick and it had taken an act of the entire Greek and Roman collection of Gods to will him not to run to her. She had fallen off her broom during practice, not an unusual thing. But the bruise had nearly turned her entire body an ugly purple. She hadn't fallen more than a few feet. Madame Pomfrey said that the curse was stealing so much of her that her body was being taxed in lieu of her soul. She laughed wryly and said Elena would only go kicking, screaming, and fighting until the end. Blaise only nodded and started slipping extra things into her tea to help her cope. With the extra supplements, she didn't bruise as badly and after some experimentation, the bruises that would have been there were nothing more than memories. She came in so happy when she realized that she didn't have to give up Quidditch and that made him smile. She would have been heartbroken if she couldn't play Quidditch anymore, it was one of the only things she had left to cling to and fight for.

Though he didn't speak, he didn't touch, he dared not look at her too long either, but he still watched her. He couldn't help it, it was in his nature and she needed to be watched over. He asked Hermione, Ron, and Harry to stay with her for as much of the day as possible. He even asked her team and most of the friends that were close enough to her to do so. Though he was not there, he made sure that there were enough people to take care of her. He really did love her after all. If she was going to make it through this year, if they were going to make it through this year with the distance that separated them now, she would need a substitute support where Blaise had been.

It hadn't taken long for her to realize that either, which only made her more curious and angry. It wasn't long until she'd given up the hope that he would speak to her and began to find what he wanted her to find: a stronger crutch, a sharper knife to get through this because he couldn't be there.

_Fine, _she huffed. _If that was how it was going to be, then so be it._

"You think they fought?" Ron asked. "You know, had a really nasty row over the summer and just aren't talking anymore?"

"No," Hermione said. "It's not that. It's worse than that. Blaise isn't speaking to her. I've seen it, he just looks at her as if she's speaking to a wall."

It was a month later that Elena took the time to sit down and think. She'd walked past the mirror early that Saturday morning and hated what she saw. She was losing grip on it, no matter how hard she fought against it. It wasn't enough, she _needed_ something else to distract her from all of it. She needed Blaise. She knew something was going on though she couldn't put her finger on it. There was something crucial that she should have told him when she realized it herself, there was something else going on. Draco hadn't bothered her as he had the year before. He sat back with a cool demeanor and watched her spiral down despite all her fighting. The smug bastard was waiting for something and she hated not knowing what it was. The bastards that had wrestled her down to a dank, cold, wet dungeon floor that summer to curse her had not told her what it was doing to her, though Draco knew exactly what was happening.

But now the bastards were either dead or in Azakaban and she didn't think they'd let her take a visit. She sighed and ran the water in the tub, sinking down into the warm soapy water and submerging herself in it. The stress nearly soaked out of her as her mind wandered through the events that had lead her there.

She'd met Blaise their second year and through a series of fortunate, wonderful, and unfortunate events, her best friend and the object of her affections was not speaking to her, the days until her so called wedding were counting down, she'd been named Head Girl, and she was fairly sure that she'd be dead before graduation...

Exciting.

She blew out some of the air in her lungs and tried to disect the mind of one Blaise Zabini. He'd known so much about the extent of her powers, the growth of it, that he'd been well prepared to avoid her every time she tried to read his mind. The common room was charmed to block out all thoughts from entering her mind, probably courtesy of Professor Dumbledore after seeing her go completely bonkers in the headquarters of the Ministry in fifth year. She really didn't remember much of it, but when someone had finally managed to retrieve her bracelet and slide it back on, there was a hole blown through the wall, Harry was passed out and there were blood splatters everywhere. She didn't want to think about what she'd done.

He'd made the bracelet that kept her out of everyone's head, but she found that even if the room was charmed if she touched a person she could hear their every thought and communicate with them. It was an interesting thing to find this out through Hermione and Rafael. She pegged them as the next couple to get together the minute she'd introduced them and with the thoughts rolling around in their heads, she had no doubt in her mind about it.

But all that were just distractions from her pain that made it a little more bearable and sometimes made her numb. She never thought she'd like the idea of being numb, but it was a hell of a lot better than being in pain. And she was very much in pain trying to understand why Blaise wouldn't speak to her.

_Especially after a kiss like that..._ she blushed a little, resurfacing and breathing deep. It had been more than just a kiss.

If he hadn't pulled back, there was no telling if it would have just ended with a kiss or another dance entirely. He was just so... potent? Intoxicating?

_Yes, _ she decided. Blaise was intoxicating and she was way too addicted to give it up so easily.

She could understand if he was a little freaked out by the way she'd nearly attacked him on the dance floor, or even having second thoughts about being with her because of Malfoy, but there was no reason she could see that he would completely abandon her.

_But he hasn't_, she caved and sighed in frustration.

He hadn't completely abandoned her. He thought he was watching her, but she was watching him too and even though he was never as close as he used to be, he was close enough. As she finished washing, she resigned herself to never Blaise really did love her, he had a funny way of showing it.

_Wait..._

She stopped mid tie of her robe as it began to slowly sink in.

He loved her. He told he loved her in that breathy voice, with tears in his eyes. He'd kissed her and danced with her and told her he loved her and then he wouldn't speak to her. Malfoy had left her alone, but Blaise had not completely abandoned her. She knew he asked people to look after her since he couldn't... He was screaming at Professor Dumbledore about something to do with her...

Was he not speaking to her because of the curse?

_But why..._

Malfoy, was the only answer. She huffed, the slimy little git. He'd done something to screw it all up... Well, she'd make sure to set things right. She pulled on pajamas and her robe and curled up on the sofa to wait for him. It wasn't something she wasn't used to doing after all.

Blaise stumbled in around midnight after his patrol was over. He climbed the tight winding stairs to their shared dorm and rolled his shoulders in pain. The lack of sleep was starting to get to him and all he really wanted to do was fall into bed... hell he may not even make it to bed. The couch would do fine.

"You look terrible," Galen said as he came up to the portrait. "It really would make it easier if you'd stop avoiding her."

"_Perso senza di te,_" he groaned and the portrait swung open.

He was tempted to groan again as she got off the couch staring at him and he stepped in, letting the portrait swing shut behind him. Maybe he should have just slept in the Room of Requirements like he originally planned. It was the first time since he'd started this attempt at avoiding her at all costs that she'd actually stayed awake long enough to see him come in. He figured it had something to do with the super potent potions he and Madam Pomfrey cooked up and slipped into her tea any chance someone got. All of her friends were armed with little vials of it and they were systematically drugging her to keep her alive. It was a wonder she hadn't figured it out yet and they thanked their lucky stars that there were heavier things weighing on her mind than the fact that her tea tasted a little sweeter than usual.

"Blaise," she greeted as he stumbled forward. He needed sleep, he couldn't do this right now.

She'd stepped aside to sit on the coffee table beside the sofa he'd stumbled towards and fell forward into the soft cushions. His blue eyes were alert and tired as he shifted a little and looked at her, willing her to go away. She did the unexpected and it almost warranted speech. She charmed his shoes, cloak,pants and dress shirt off so he was left in his undershirt and boxers. He felt the warmth of a blanket over him and he was just too weak to refuse her kindness. He didn't deserve it and though his eyes wouldn't stay open his mind was tuned into her every word.

"I don't know exactly why, but I know there's a reason." She said smiling at him the way she always did. "Whatever you and Malfoy have agreed on, whatever you think is going to come of this, I appreciate your concern. I just don't understand why you don't understand why you shouldn't do this."

She didn't say anymore but waved the light out and adjusted the blanket around his shoulders and fluffed the pillow under his head, making sure he was comfortable.

"I hope one day soon you'll come to your senses... Goodnight Blaise."

She vanished into her room then as his mind went dark with sleep. Damn her and her kindness, he almost wanted to curse her, shake her, but more than anything he wanted to hold her again and it was driving him crazy.

* * *

Blaise woke up hungry for the first time in a long time. He wanted something with chocolate on it and strangely he wanted green tea... He almost smirked at the thought of what Elena would have said.

_But Blaise... you **hate** tea..._

He would have rolled his eyes and made a crack about how she always tasted like tea and it was a nice memory refresher about their kissing...but that would have required him to speak to her. He sighed and shrugged, getting off the couch to go shower and get dressed. He headed down the steps and as soon as he hit the bottom a group of prefects came to him to start asking questions about the arrangements for the Halloween party that weekend. The house elves were already well underway of preparing food for the night and the D.J. had been arranged via Elena's magic radio which played anything and everything in existence. Around eleven is when the lower grades would be sent off to bed and then the party would actually begin with the 6th and seventh years.

That reminded him, he needed a costume. _Shit._

He finally made it to breakfast and plopped down in his seat and reached for whatever looked like it had the most chocolate in it: a dutch chocolate muffin with chocolate flakes in it. Milicent stared in amazement, she hadn'y seen him eat chocolate in the entire month he'd been there. He kicked the idea of drinking tea in favor of coffee and Milicent slammed her hand down.

"Now you see here Blaise," she started. "What the hell is going on? Have you made up with Elena yet, you're starting to piss me off you know?"

He could only shake his head at her anger, "It's not that simple Milicent..."

She looked skeptical, "Then make it that simple. What the hell is going on?"

"How is she?" He asked swallowing down bites of muffin before grabbing another one.

"Why don't you ask her?"

"Because I can't," he said simply. "It's that simple. How is she?"

She grumbled but stood and pulled him away with her away from Malfoy's prying ears as he sat down beside them. They rounded a corner and once they were sure they were alone in the corridor she began to speak.

"Since we started drugging her she's been doing better, but it's not enough. As strong as she may seem now, she's only getting weaker by the day. You need to do something."

"Just... keep an eye on her, okay? Don't let her go anywhere alone in case she falls out. I'll ask Madame Pomfrey about the potion and see if we can make a stronger version for her."

She growled, "Are you not listening to me?"

"I am," he said. "But I can only do so much. I'm not exactly in the best position okay? I'm doing as much as I can."

Milicent huffed but left him. She'd never understand it. She could only hope that Blaise knew what he was doing. He didn't but that was okay. He didn't need to know really, just know that he was doing something. Whenever the pain got too much, the longing overwhelmed him, he would lock himself in his room and read the contract. As many times as he'd read it in the past month, he should have had it memorized by now. His copy had been enlarged to poster size and covered in sticky notes that acted as reminders and counters for every loophole he could possibly think of.

Draco had been just as thorough in his drafting of Blaise's clause as Blaise had been in revising the clause Draco had written for himself. It was a pain in the ass but he made due with the few things Draco left out such as indirect contact through mutual friends and the like. He wasn't allowed to speak to her or even think to her but he could ask her friends to act as his eyes and so long as he could feel the chilling brace of the contract in his mind, the pain was bearable.

Classes ended early Friday afternoon and gave everyone ample time to scurry around for costumes and the like for the party that saturday night. Rafael had taken it upon himself to kidnap Blaise from the library and drag him to Hogsmeade in an attempt to find a suitable costume.

"Let me guess," Blaise started. "You're doing this because someone asked you to?"

Rafael grinned, "Don't be silly, Blue. I'm doing this because you need a costume, I need a costume, and the girls figured that I had the best chance of getting you to spill what's going on between you and Elena."

He sighed, "Of course."

It didn't take long to find suitable costumes. Blaise was going as Casanova. He had a sneaking suspicion that it was Hermione that told Rafael to find the costume for him. Rafael was Zorro. They carried their costumes to the Three Broomsticks and had a butter beer together.

"You can start whenever you're ready." Rafael said and that only made Blaise scoff and glare at him. "Or should I do the talking?"

"You don't know anything."

Rafael smiled.

"Come now Blue, I've known you since freshman year my dear Housemate. I bet I know more than you think."

Blaise huffed and took another gulp of his drink as Rafael began to lay out his analysis of the entire situation. He only watched his friend go through the entirety of what had transpired on simple logic and astute guesses with a straight face. He could see why he'd almost been placed in Ravenclaw.

"You love her," Rafael said finally swirling his butter beer around. "So I understand why you think you have to do this... but you don't have to do this. There are better ways to do this. You're hurting her more away from her than you would be if you stayed by her side."

"I will not watch her die, Rafael..." he said. "I won't let the life she was supposed to live be rubbed out because I was too selfish to let her go."

"What kind of life is imprisonment, Blaise?" Rafael asked.

Blaise sighed and downed the last of his butter beer.

"What else can I do? I've looked and looked but there's no answer to this. There's no information on the curse. I've looked and I can't find anything."

"We'll keep looking," Rafael said. "We'll find her a way out of this. I want to see you two married you know?"

He chuckled a little as they finished their drinks and headed back to school. Blaise trudged up the stairs after dinner before Elena had come back and locked the door crossing the room to the desk near the window where his owl, a majestic Tawny owl prestigiously named Merlin, rested on his perch.

"Hey Merlin," he said drawing his fingers over the birds feathers. "I hope your love life with Nimue is going better than mine."

Merlin tilted his head and pecked gently at Blaise's hands as he sat down to write a letter.

"I know," he said. "I don't need to hear it from you too."

When he finished, he sealed it with a stamp and wrote Noemi's name across it.

"You know where my sister is, can you take this to her?"

Merlin took off with the letter in hand and swooped out of sight. Blaise couldn't help but sigh looking out into the sun setting in the distance. Why had his life become so complicated?

* * *

Noemi arrived home to see Merlin pecking at her window. She opened it and left the bird in opening the letter as she slid off her pumps and poured herself a glass of wine. It had been a particularly trying day and all she wanted was to sleep.

_Dear Noemi, _it read:

_How's work? I hope you haven't run into anymore pre-madonnas. If you have, tell them to come talk to me. I've got a few new potions I'd like them to try. One of them melts of certain body parts very slowly._

She couldn't help but laugh at that and continued on.

_Well, by now you know that I didn't send this letter to shoot the breeze as some would say. _(She figured that out when she came into to see Merlin pecking on the window.)

_I need help Noemi. I can't do this anymore. I'm not sure why I thought that it was a good idea to cut myself off from her, but it's killing me. We're Head Boy and Girl together you know? Her room is right next to mine, we share a common room. And I'm trying to stay away from her. I'm trying but it's so **hard**..._

Noemi's eyes softened as the letter continued on with tear stairs and ink splotches.

_She's getting worse, so much worse that she's had to miss classes some days just to save up strength to walk when she's feeling better, she looks terrible. We've been systematically drugging her drinks with strengthening potions to help her but it doesn't seem to be working as much as we'd hoped. _

_I keep looking for a way out for her, but I can't find anything on the runes on her body or the curse itself. I'm running out of options. If I break my promise, she'll be killed and if I stay the way things are she'll_

_I don't even know what will happen. She won't die but she won't be my Elena anymore. Isn't that the same as dying?_

_I love her, Noemi. What am I supposed to do? Please, help me._

_Love, Blaise._

She sighed. She hadn't expected him to hold on so long and appreciated his resilience. She sighed and glanced at the letter Elena sent him before he'd left to go back to Hogwarts. She couldn't send it to him yet. It would have undeniably killed him. Instead, she lifted her phone from the cradle and dialed the number of one Vera Ivanov of the Department of magic.

"Hello?" She answered.

"Hey Vera, this is Noemi... I have a bit of a problem that I need your advice on."

* * *

Saturday finally came around and all of Hogwarts was excited. An actual party with good music? Hah! They couldn't wait. Blaise and Elena didn't have time to fret about the future or curses or anything else while scrambling to get the last few things in order before Dinner and scrambling even more to fix the Great Hall for the party. For the first time in a long time, Elena felt like she wasn't cursed at all.

"A little to the left," she instructed Hermione and the jack-o-lantern shifted a bit. Blaise was casting the charm over the ceiling of the Great Hall and painted a dark night with a full moon laughing at them.

"Nice," she grinned looking up and casting a charm for a bat illusion to fly over head at times. "Spooky enough?"

He didn't answer but turned to take care of something else. She shrugged, even in their better moments as of late there wasn't anything that she could've done with Malfoy on a few feet away and listening in. Preparations were made and about a half hour before the party was set to begin, everyone vanished to change into their costumes.

Pansy was not accustomed to not getting what she wanted and what she wanted was Draco Malfoy. So when he'd asked her this simple favor, she couldn't deny him. It wasn't as if she actually like the bitch anyway and this would be a good way to knock the freak down a peg or two. Twirling the dangerous little vial in her hand, she couldn't help but laugh...

The bitch would get what she deserved.


	10. Didn't You Know It?

**Why yes I am going to finish this story and yes it has been a very long time, but I'm going to do my best! I will try to finish this story (and maybe my other ones) before May. Here's hoping. This seems to be the only story, for now, that I may keep the chapter length about the same. We'll see.  
**

* * *

_If I apologize..._  
_It wouldn't make it all un-happen._  
_You've said this all before_  
_I'm empty, waiting, hoping..._

The ball was something they all expected. The music was descent, courtesy of good research and organization. Costumes were acquired and Blaise did his best to avoid Elena, but he wasn't really sure what she was going as. Anything that looked remotely like something she would wear, he avoided. So the pixies, the angels, the witches and the lion, he avoided. Hermione appeared, grinning at him in her dark angel costume, but she was obvious as Raphael didn't leave her side the entire night. He found Draco who looked more annoyed than anything at his inability to find Elena, dressed as something dark and despicable, probably a vampire if he thought about it.

"I don't think she'd be dressed as a slave," Ron murmured and Blaise couldn't help but snicker as Draco glared at them and marched off through the crowd to continue his search.

As the night continued, Blaise found himself wondering if she was there at all. No one knew where she was, so apparently she wasn't there, that made him relax a little more and enjoy himself. At once he was worried that maybe she was trapped in one of her moments to come down, but Hermione told him that she hadn't been in their room when she'd gone up to get her. She was probably in the library or wandering the castle, avoiding the party she did a very good job of putting together. Hence here he was, slow dancing with a girl in a silver Phantom of the Opera mask. To her credit, she was a beautiful rendition of the Phantom. Her cloak was short, the tuxedo was actually a corset and rather than slacks there was a phantasmic skirt and patterned tights. She was very graceful and as they danced, he had to realize that the corset and skirt she wore was actually a refitted tango dress.

"Do you dance?"

"I do, though I haven't in a while... The dress gave it away didn't it?"

Blaise nodded in good humor and they chatted on about their summer exploits and activities, skating around the topic of who they actually were. Why ruin the anonymity of the moment with names? There was so much that came with those names: their burdens, their age, and their futures and dooms. No, nameless was the best policy for the night they agreed through their skirting of the topic.

"It's odd how open people can be behind a mask, isn't it?"

He nodded with a bitter smile, "It's because no one can attach it to you."

"That's true."

"So... since I don't think I've ever met you, what year are you?"

"I guess that means you're a seventh year, doesn't it?"

He tilted his head and smirked, "How did you know?"

"Because I know who you are, we've met before." She told him with a smile. "Don't worry about it though, handsome. I take no offense."

"I think I would remember someone like you."

"If you saw me outside this context, you would... But as I said don't worry about it. I always pegged you for a one woman kind of man..."

Blaise laughed, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Everyone knows you have a thing for Elena... hell who wouldn't? _Everyone has a thing for Elena_, and not in that weird slavery-Malfoy way."

Blaise cleared his throat, he guessed that she wasn't bluffing when she said he knew who he was. But who was she? Nothing really stood out, not even her voice. It could be a charm, but he doubted it. She gave off the aura of someone that could disappear if they wanted to at any time they wanted to.

"We aren't dating..."

"Yes, yes I know. Not officially anyway, but you two spend an awful lot of time watching each other, and you take an awful lot of time out of your schedule to pour strengthening potions in her tea."

"Who are you?" He asked and she smiled again, "How do you know about all this?"

"Friend of the Griffins..." she replied. "You should hear 'mione trying to get information out of El' about it. The woman could scare old Voldy straight, tan, and with bollywood locks... I'm personally more interested in your reasoning for doing it."

He stilled. The way she spoke made him think that she wasn't British, but he couldn't really place where she could be from. She was probably a Griffyndor, but she could just as easily be a smooth-talking Ravenclaw or a Slytherin. Who was she? He doubted she was a Hufflepuff.

"You have a hypothesis?"

"Well since El' told me about that party in Florida...I've had my thoughts..."

"Enlighten me," he said neutrally, but her eyes narrowed.

"You struck up a deal with the Plat-blondie. Stay away from her, and he would stop using that curse thing on her right?" Blaise said nothing, "What I don't understand is _why _you thought that was a good idea..."

"I was trying to protect her-"

"And I know she appreciates the sentiment, but you did a much better job protecting her when you were with her all the time."

He frowned, "What...do you mean?"

"El' loves you," she told him simply. No inflection, not pressing, just a statement of fact and that made him clear his throat. "If you'd stayed with her, rather than making her think that you'd given up any hope of ever being with her by striking up the deal, she would fight a lot harder than she does now."

They stopped mid-step and Blaise looked down at her, furrowing his eyebrows, "Is that... what she thinks?... that I've given up?"

"That's what it looks like," she said. "What do you expect her to think when you don't talk to her?"

"I..." he started and swallowed thickly. He pulled her off the dance floor, cutting through the crowd and out the main doors. They headed down the hall a little ways to speak in low tones. This wasn't a conversation to be had with Malfoy prowling the dance floor.

"That's not... I would never give up," Blaise started. "Especially not to the slimy bastard."

She didn't say anything watching him in interest as he took the time to formulate his words. He didn't think about why he was telling this to a compete stranger, but he supposed it was because he couldn't tell Elena. Even more so, she would never bring this up if they met again. That would give her away as the Phantom after all.

"I love her," Blaise said. "I love her so much it hurts to think about it. It hurts to see her and know that I can't... but I did it to give her time, to give us both time to find a way out. And I've been looking, I keep looking, and I will keep looking, I just knew that the curse, the way it works is that it's more aggressive the more it's used. She didn't need that and I couldn't handle being the cause of her shortening time... I'm not giving up, I'm retreating to regroup."

She made a sound that Blaise couldn't interpret and shrugged, "Sounds well and good. Still think you're underestimating her love for you and her hatred for Plat-Blondie... She's stubborn."

Blaise laughed, "That's an understatement if there ever was..."

She laughed and turned back, stretching, "I think I'm gonna to head to bed... i'm allergic to too much emotion, I didn't expect you to tell me that."

"I didn't expect to tell it..."

"Feel better?"

"A little more reassured..."

"Could I give you some advice?"

Blaise nodded looking at her in the half light, "Even a little show of that would mean more to her than those potions of yours..."

He frowned, as she walked away wondering what she meant. Wait, who was she anyway?

"Wait, I didn't get your name!"

She turned around in her mock ballet heels and bowed with a flourish of her cloak, before singing softly in perfect pitch, "_I am the mask you wear... it's me they hear. My spirit and my voice, in one combined. The Phantom of the Opera is there inside your mind._"

She whirled around so the cape, and her long straight hair fluttered and revealed the back of her dress, and expanse of smooth skin that felt strange to look at as she rushed away in a flair of dramatics. He chuckled a little as she vanished beyond the torch light, her shoes silent against the stone floors.

_His own personal Phantom of the Opera,_ her wished there were more of them around.

The ball ended with no fuss, luckily. No one had seen Elena the entire night, and he didn't see her when he returned to their rooms. He fell back onto the bed and looked at the enlarged poster of the contract, littered with stickynotes and scribbles. There was a new one added. He frowned looking at it. It hadn't been there when he'd left earlier in the day to get things ready for the ball... He got up to approach it. It was stuck next to the section on Blaise's limitation of contact. The contract said that he was not allowed to speak to her about anything not related to their positions or classes, direct or indirectly. Nothing intentional, nothing direct, no words could be exchanged.

The sticky note was black with the Phantom's mask at the corner of it. The writing was neat and unrecognizable to him, but the words were clear enough:

_Says nothing about gestures of sentiments without words, a connection of knowing_

_Says nothing about meaning without words, evocation of memories  
_

_Says nothing about mutual assurance/knowledge that it is you  
_

_Malfoy's an idiot.  
_

He let the words roll around in his mind for a moment and contemplated the sticky note. Obviously, the mysterious "Phantom" was a friend of the Golden Trio as she had access to their rooms. When she could have snuck in to post it, he didn't really know, but it didn't matter. He heard the sound of rustling on the other side of the wall he shared with Elena. It sounded like falling books. She screamed and it all died to soft whimpering. Blaise bit his lip, pacing, what was he supposed to do? "gestures of sentiments without words", "connection of knowing"... that sounded very nice but didn't sound very practical! "Evocation of memories..." He scoffed and whirled growling at his own helplessness and his eyes fell on the dusty case of his violin... The one she'd made for him. In a moment of insight, he scrambled across the room, opening it and cursing himself for being so damn stupid.

Communication through words, physical contact, said nothing about sounds, indirect, said nothing about knowing and feeling, sentiments, psychic connection that wasn't tangible! If he ever met that Phantom again, he promised to hug her for her wisdom. He'd gotten the damned thing out and settled on his shoulder and let something else take over his playing. He played loud, facing the wall they shared. He played the last song she sang to him and he hoped that she could hear him.

* * *

To be honest it was dark... And peaceful where she was. There was no pain, no sense of anything there. She'd fought it off long enough, she'd fought it off for the whole weak, but now it was back with vengeance and dragged her down. It was so quiet, so peaceful.

_What was that? _

The sound of fingers on fibers and vibrations on air, the feeling of warmth and belonging that she didn't think she'd ever feel again, growing, sweleling, swooning with the sound of it as the darkness cleared and cleared and gave way to her room. She felt the hardwood beneath her cheeks, the warmth of the fireplace, the softness of her clothing, . She felt herself coming, drawn out by passion and memory. The kiss, the singing, that moment between them before that contract on the door. At least, he was telling the truth... She hadn't thought that he was lying to her, but she didn't know where else it could go if he didn't understand what she meant.

He understood if the music was a hint. He understood so much more and she sniffled away the tears, pushing herself to sitting drawn up by the swell of a familiar melody and smiled a little at the sound, crawling towards the wall to press her ear to the wall.

"I love you," she said softly. The song stopped. Had he heard her? Had she been that loud, but there was a tapping against the wall, in a familiar rhythm that she couldn't quite grasp. It wasn't until he started playing the song that she got it and laughed at the memory. She laughed hard as he played what he could remember from the song and felt something like light returning to her. She felt warm in her own skin for the first time in a long time.

Blaise grinned at the sound of her laughing, relishing in the sound.

* * *

Draco felt the tug on the enchantment and growled. It wasn't Blaise crossing lines, it was Elena fighting it and _winning_. He'd be damned if he let that happened. He'd have to rethink this plan. There was a reason why he didn't make it an Unbreakable vow. One, he was trying to find a way out of it and around the stipulations. Blaise had been more than thorough in the way he'd drafted his side of it. Draco thought he'd been as thorough without making it impossible for Blaise to conduct his duties properly. That would've made it too obvious.

There is was again, that tug, and this one was harder, grabbing hold of it and running away from him. Something was happening...

"What wrong?" Pansy asked looking up at him. Her lipstick smudged a bright pink ring around his dick and he forced her mouth back over him.

"You stopped."

As she continued to suck, he imagined Elena with glossy dark eyes between his legs. Naked, silent and utterly obedient. It had been enough to get him off even with Pansy's deplorable skill. He shooed her away and headed towards his room to take a look at the contract again and tossing it away. He was a Slytherin, there was no need to keep to his promises. Blaise may be a borderline Slytherin, but Draco was born and raised in treachery and broken promises.

* * *

Vera came in, shuffling up the steps with a sigh and heard the sound of running footsteps up the stairs from the basement. He appeared at the landing and rushed towards her. Her stomach flipped and she shrieked as he swept her up into his arms with a kiss.

"You're home!" He cheered and she only groaned in reply, flopping in his arms, too tired to do more than let him squeeze her tightly.

"Still excited to see me, I see."

He grinned and kissed again, "I'm always happy to see you, darling."

She shook her head and told him that Noemi would be coming over. Aleksandr Ivanov hummed his reply and got her out of her coat, our of her heels and up into his arms in record time leaving her briefcase by the door and rocking her as he walked. He was toasty despite the frigidness of Russia, something that she always appreciated. She had a theory that him growing up on the Mediterranean equipped him with an inner heat source that may need to be recharged soon.

_It could be that he's gigantic_, he mind quipped as he headed up the stairs to their bedroom.

"Rough day honey?" He asked realizing that she wasn't nearly as frisky as she usually was when she came home. She was downright exhausted and Vera was never too exhausted for sex, _never_.

It had been a stipulation of their marriage after all. She'd been a virgin when they married and before she accepted the ring he promised a few things: food, wine, chocolate, love, fealty, and cosmic-envied sex. Not necessarily in that order, but he knew he had her at food. Sex was just an extra. From the day they were married, until now they probably ranked among the top twenty most sexually active couples in the world. Vera, while innocent, had been adventurous coming up with new things to try, pushing every boundary ever known to man and she still did. When she wasn't doing that, she was thanking him for having adequate rhythm and caring enough to take care of both their needs.

When she'd flopped in his arms, he knew something was wrong. He was even half-naked! No more ripped shirts.

"She's coming over for help with her brother... seems like he's gotten interested in a girl with a more than insane family. Have you heard from your sister?"

He nodded, sliding her onto the overstuffed couch before heading to the kitchen. "She sent me a letter a few days ago. Her handwriting is getting more sporadic, but as usual she won't say anything else."

He came back with a glass of red wine and plates. Their fireplace roared and Noemi stepped out looking fresh from the Italian sun. Vera raised a glass to her as Aleksandr poured another glass of wine and Noemi took a seat glancing at the fact that Aleksandr was half-naked and Vera was still fully clothed. Seemed like she wasn't the only one that was having a rough week, let alone a rough day.

"It's nice to see you, Alek. Still dealing with Vera?"

Vera huffed and he laughed, "Be nice. You know I love her."

"I love her too, I only kid. How are you?"

He shrugged, "Worried as usual. Working as much as ever. You?"

She shook her head, "My brother... I don't know what's going on in that school."

"I heard. What's the problem? Contrary to the ministry's vaults, they don't know more about fucked up curses than pure blood families..."

Noemi snorted, she knew that much. Vera would be the only one that wouldn't know that, but she didn't seem to care as he came back with dinner, serving the two women before starting to eat himself. While Vera was occupied, Noemi sighed and told them the details as far as Blaise had told her.

"Fatigue, catatonia... black runes, draining the body..." The symptoms were oddly familiar. "Sporadic bouts of personality...lessened..."

"What's your brother's name?" Aleksandr asked eventually.

"Blaise... Blaise Zabini."

He snickered, "You've got to be kidding me..."

Noemi frowned, "Why?"

"My sister, Elena Valentin, is who you're talking about."

She gaped, "Well... that's interesting."

Vera snorted, "Looks like we'll be related eventually. So Alek, go on and tell her what you know. Cause the ministry didn't have anything on it."

He sighed, "I'm a little blurry on the details, but it's a soul binding curse. It gets more aggressive the more the cursing party uses it to control the cursee and eventually the cursee will either go docile or die."

"How... long will that take?" Noemi asked.

"Depends on the cursee and the frequency of use. Since Malfoy hasn't been able to use it because of whatever your brother did, she has a little more time, but she might not have as much as she should considering that whatever he did is keeping Blaise away from her too."

Noemi huffed, tearing into her steak, figures that the world was that small and that her brother was in such a tumultuous situation. They talked a little more about ways to combat it, all of which Blaise knew about already she figured. Aleksandr was planning a trip to the Valentin mansion to get the book dealing with the curse as it was the only one left.

"Don't you go alone." Vera said, sitting up at the news. "Don't you dare."

He laughed and kissed her hand, "Of course I'm not going alone. I'm taking Ivan with me."

She sighed at that. She knew that her brother would keep an eye out for him, not only that he actually liked Elena a lot. They were practically thick as thieves when they met and if he knew (which he probably did) he'd be more than happy than to go.

"So... I'll come back when you've got the book, yes?"

Aleksandr nodded and she was off. He washed dishes and crowded into the shower with Vera, holding her under the spray so she wouldn't fall asleep. She did anyway and he carried her to bed after drying her off. He followed her into dreamland soon after and held her close. True to character, she woke up him up by straddling his early-morning hard on.

"I thought you were tired," Aleksandr groaned, looking at her through a haze of sleep.

She shook her head, "Only needed a recharge."

He laughed at that and rolled her over to make up for the time spent sleeping. Luckily, she didn't have to go to work the next day. She would've called in sick if she'd had to anyway.

* * *

The day after the ball was something that most people didn't expect: Elena was practically back to normal. Skipping down corridors humming loudly. Her hair shifted colors, as did her eyes and everyone wondered what exactly had gotten into her. Hermione slid into a seat beside Blaise with a suspicious glance.

"Alright, spill... how did you do that?"

He looked over at Elena singing the lyrics to her song and twirling around with Ron, " I've been watching for a while-Have you now?... Your smile I've seen a thousand times-Pretty, ain't it?"

"And why does she change her voice?"

"Its a duet that she wrote..." He said in explanation.

"A Duet... explain please."

It was the song that she desperately tried to hide from him after she wrote it. But she was as careless with her lyrics with him as he was with his sheet music with her and he'd read it, copied her singing it and played along. It had been the one song that they sung/performed together. At the time, he hadn't really grasped the full depth of the song or what her inspiration was, but that was before he realized that she had a knack for divination even if she didn't seem to realize it.

_The woman has too many talent._

"_And the sorrow that fills your eyes...-_**I'm dying inside..."**

He hummed along officially earning Hermione's intrigue as she would sing a line and he would hum, what she assumed to be the response. Now she was desperate to know the words and how whatever deal Malfoy had struck with him wasn't being overthrown in the moment. While she was happy that Elena was looking better. No, no just looking, she was practically glowing as she used to.

"I've seen the way you look at me."

_Me?_

"When you think I don't know it..."

_I never suspected. __How would I ever tell you,__"You're the only one I ever notice"?_

"I didn't know this," she sung with a giggle, skipping into the classroom, around his desk.

_You're smile. Comes to Mind. You're laughter eases the pain of knowing you'll never be mine_

_"_I don't see why..._"_

_Your tears. Break me down. What can I do to make you smile?_

_"_Talk to me...and let me know..._"_

_Maybe one day I'll have the courage, to say what's on my mind..._

"When will that be?...I've been waiting for a while."

He let out a sound that Rafael could gauge as class started and things were back to normal. Elena and Hermione raising their hands alternatively. Draco sat near enough to Elena, but she didn't seem to care, scribbling her notes and maintainaing her color and the obvious joy. The professors in each of her classes seemed to be catching whatever it was that had re-lit Elena's happiness. Hell, even Snape seemed to be in a better mood and that was saying a lot. By lunch, it was Blaise that was speak/singing and Elena was humming the reply. Hermione wasn't sure how they knew when the other started, but it didn't matter.

"I felt my knees go weak," he said sliding down the table and greeting a few people in passing. Girls swooned and watched him. He passed Elena without greeting but she hummed in reply, he knew that. He didn't need to hear her, he didn't really need to do anything, but speak words that oddly fit into context.

_Did they now?_

He'd made it to Hermione she was in a daze and he'd gotten Rafael to join him on the line. He knew the words too after all.

"When you're near. I can't even speak."

She flushed as Elena grinned, humming as Hermione said it.

_"I never suspected."_

It was amazing that their friends, who'd never heard the song, knew exactly what to say and that only made it more suspicious.

"I know it's wrong to feel this way," Blaise said cutting through Milicent's incessant questions of "Why".

_Why would that be?_

"I suppose I could try and move on with life," he said with a sigh and Millicent looked a gasp. Was he insane? he'd lost his mind, she decided and it was her job to fix it before something terrible happened. but there was something in the way that he'd said that made her think different. He was fiddling with something in his hand, a trinket of some kind that was strangely familiar: it was a box that he and Elena usually used to carry potions. Their initials were all over it, seals and charms for protection and the like.

_How could you?_

"But you're in my heart and there to stay," he said softly looking at the box with interest before getting up and assuring Millicent that he hadn't lost his mind.

_I already knew that, didn't you notice?_

"And these tears that fall from your eyes are tearing me down inside," he said happening upon a sniffling Hufflepuff girl, Lilian, they'd taken potions together a year ago. She'd always been nice, they'd gotten along well enough.

She'd been having a hard day, Snape had yelled at her for something or another that really wasn't her fault, she was worried about the end of the year exams and to top it all off her boyfriend had been cheating on her. She barely managed to look up as Blaise slid into the seat beside her, offering her his handkerchief and wiping her tears.

_I never realized..._

"I wish to see you smile...Oh please. Once More..."

Lilian flushed at the words and a small smile came upon her lips as he got up with a wink, snagged a few sandwiches and was out of the grand hall. Elena beamed, but Blaise hadn't been facing her, only walking away and caught the glimpse of it and smiled slightly as he exited the mess hall. They didn't see each other until much later after she'd come back from Quidditch practice singing the song loudly in the shower, the refrain over and over again.

"_I already knew that. Didn't you notice? When you asked me to I stayed with you. Just talk to me and let me know. How ya' feelin, what's the deal and...Listen to me. I won't leave. You should've known that. When you asked me to I'd've stayed with you. We'll be together till forever. I love you..."  
_

He grinned passing their shared bathroom._  
_

"I love you!" She sung louder and he plugged in his headphones, heading towards their kitchenette. She came out the bathroom still singing the refrain, "You should've know that. when you asked me to I'd've stayed with you. We'll be together till forever-"

_I love you, _he hummed over the sound of his music.

"I already knew that!"

_Didn't you know it?_


	11. 133 and 23 thirds

_Do you ...wish it were me?_  
_You fall into bed with every night_  
_And watch sleeping at your side?_  
_I wish it were you..._  
_And not the sleeping silence of dawn_  
_Who were we together,_  
_If we were anything at all...?_

Tears burning blue streaks across his cheeks, too much, too fast, all of it too fast. What had he done? How could this happen? Why? Those eyes, those beautiful eyes wouldn't look at him, couldn't. They weren't even red, just sick black despair and sanguine tracks. No light reached them, they didn't see him, and he knew that she didn't feel him anymore.

"Come on, honey... come on, talk to me..."

Sounds from the left but not from her, not from her any more. Dear Gods, why? Why?

"Come on, you have to wake up honey. You have to wake up!"

More noises, forces on his shoulders, shaking him, moving, but he didn't budge, his abs held a revolt and pushed, shrugging them away and focusing on the face that would no longer answer him, the eyes that no longer saw him.

"Wake up! WAKE UP!"

* * *

Blaise sat up in bed on a breathless sound. Eyes wide, staring out into the darkness. His sheets were damp with sweat, pooling in soft, sticky wet puddles around his waist and over his legs. He shivered and frowned. Cold? He was never cold. Never ever cold... This wasn't good. When he got out of bed and shuffled towards the door, stepping into a pair of sweatpants as he did so, he shivered again. The door opened to see the fire still roaring in the fireplace and Elena was bundled up on the couch reading a book and humming.

It was the middle of the night, he didn't say anything, neither did she humming something that was oddly familiar. He should have known what it was, but just as quick as she was humming it, she was done humming, off the couch and heading towards her room on light toes. He smiled at her in passing. He was sure that she didn't see him, but it didn't matter. She was happy, well happier than she had been in a long time. She fluttered along, into her room and he had to wonder what on earth she was doing up in the middle of the night?

The tea kettle whistled loud and obnoxious as he walked towards the small stove and he poured her mug, no sugar. She bounced back in, sliding a hand along his arm, sending shivers up his spine, as she picked up her cup without a word. It had been like that ever since the day long duet and the Quidditch match that weekend. She'd been at her best running along walls of the stadium, leaping to grab the Snitch before the Hufflepuff seeker and catching hold of her broom at the last minute. As usual, watching Elena play Quidditch had been hell on his nerves, but he let it go. She was so happy, carried on the shoulders of her team members while being scolded. So carefree, falling through the air and over miles of space as if she could fly... It was more than he could have ever wished or imagined. They held a small party that night in their room. Elena provided music and most of the night was spent dancing, laughing and having as much of a good time as they could when the two people that lived there couldn't speak to one another. It wasn't that bad considering that talked in loud terms so the other could hear and the conversation was practically homogenous across the room.

When they were gone. Blaise and Elena sat on the couch for a long time, staring into the fire, not touching, not needing to, just enjoying the company and the understanding. She fiddled with the bracelet with a soft and shy smile, glancing at him. He wanted to laugh but he didn't, only watching her out of his periphery. Pretty soon he got up and headed to his room, returning to the couch with his violin in hand and struck up a new song that she'd never heard before. She curled on the couch and faded into sleep while he played. She fell asleep and woke up in her own bed, tucked in and comfortable underneath the sheets, another blanket that wasn't her own was over her bed for extra warmth and from the thickness and coloring of it, she knew it was Blaise's.

Blaise woke up to her singing Korean pop ballads and dancing around in their common room.

"Give me a call! Baby-Baby..."

He would have laughed but that was too much as she hoped into her long socks and shoes, spinning around in a circle hopping in time with the song. She was so amazing and so damned silly as she whirled on him and bounded past him, still singing loud and perfectly on key. The whirl of her clothes around her made him smile, if he tried hard enough he could pretend that the black marks along her back didn't exist.

"Sarahandago! Sarahandago! Munjarado namegyeo jweo..."

She didn't stop singing as they headed out to classes, passing through crowds of people and serenading people as she did, dancing a mix of ballet and pop down the halls to class.

"Hold me... Anirago... hold me... tell me... hold me~... Gamyeonandwae~!"

By the time dinner started, he found himself humming the song and writing down notes to play on his violin. She didn't stop singing it all day.

* * *

Aleksandr left the Valentin house with the promise to have their stepmother sent to Azkaban as soon as he was able. He'd told Vera what happened and she was already working on the case. He left it in her hands as he had something more important to do. The Floo trip was quick and as he marched on the castle, he could feel the heat and rage burning in his hand, sending his magic crying "Death!" and "Ruin!" as he charged on the castle. A one man army against a legion.

He was focused, so he waited. He was precise, so they fell. He was angry, so they suffered. No one died, that would be too easy... much too easy. But none of that mattered as he battled his way through the small legion. Aleksandr stormed the stone fortress on his own. Ivan didn't know, neither did Vera and there were no number of wizards that were going to get in his way. His sister was on the line and so much more than that. When he'd realized the reasoning behind it, he'd been furious and rushing towards the place on the little slip of paper as they took his step mother into Ministry custody and were probably on the way to get Lucius Malfoy and company. He didn't care about any of that so long as he got to where he needed and wasn't too late to reverse this disaster.

_I'm sorry, Nymph. I'm so sorry.._. He should have know earlier, he should have realized. All the signs were there. All the signs had been plain as day, but he hadn't been there to see them... Trapped in his own issues. The trauma... the overwhelming circumstances. But that wasn't an excuse. That wasn't a excuse to not protect her as he should have. It wasn't an excuse that he would allow himself to use.

The last man fell and he headed up the stairs without further distraction. When he opened, white lightning twist around the room, protecting the man strung up in magical bonds, looking ragged and harried. He was older than Aleksandr, much older. His hair was streaked with grey curls and dark brown. His beard had grown out and he looked a little more than worse for wear in his imprisonment.

He felt sick and angry, furious actually as he walked through the storm and came to look the man in the eyes. In response, his eyes widened and he gasped.

"Alexander..." he whispered, white lightning died down and Aleksandr stepped back to magic the bonds away and get the older man down from his magical crucifixion. "How did you find me?"

"You know she was terrible at keeping secrets."

They stumbled out of the stone fortress far away enough for Aleksandr to Apparate them to St. Mungos to be treated. He didn't leave the man's bedside. Vera came to visit once he'd contacted her about it. Noemi came as well bearing the contract found on the Malfoy premises. How she got it away from the Ministry, no one asked, but it didn't matter. When the man opened his eyes again, Aleksandr explained everything and on threat of never returning to the family, the man laughed and smiled sadly at him.

"I'm sorry," he said and Aleksandr shook his head as he waved his hand over the contract, it fizzled and rippled under his touch, cried bloody murder and burst into flames.

"You have nothing to apologize for."

* * *

He was sick of it Draco decided. The days were getting closer to the end yet it didn't seem to be making a difference. If anything she was getting _better _ and he could feel the tug of magic against his soul. She was getting stronger, and he would be damned if by some oversight she managed to escape it. Goddamn it, what was going on? He watched her flitting around the Great Hall, greeting, smiling, laughing, joking and he decided that it had to stop. Whatever was going on had to stop and he'd have to force her otherwise the curse may break altogether and he couldn't have that no.

"Everybody make some noise!" She called through the halls, eliciting a rally of cheers. It was almost over and they were taking their exams in less than an hour.

When exams ended, the cheers were back, screaming happy sounds that grated his nerves... Mainly because he could see her and there was no trace of the curse on her... No trace of the spiritual trauma that she should be experiencing. No trace of him on her and he hated it. Wasn't she supposed to be his, subject to him forever? Shouldn't she know that to the core of her, and shouldn't she acknowledge it? She should, but for some reason no part of her seemed to be acknowledging anything that wasn't unbridled joy.

He'd watched the Quidditch match with contempt as she was jamming out and running across the stadium walls, bounding through the air to catch the Snitch and tumble forward onto her broom and go zooming off as if she wasn't spiritually debilitated... as if she were still whole. He hated it. He hated it and wondered if this meant that his hold on her was weakening...

So he read up on the book his father had given him. The curse was only as strong as the terror that he inflicted on her, the despair... He was becoming inconsequential to her. He couldn't let that happen. He wouldn't be weak, he could handle this and ingratiate himself far beyond his father's hopes. She was important... and he needed her. She would be his key into the higher realms of power that his father could only dream of.

Elena had to be his.

Dinner ended and like she always did she headed out of the Dining Hall alone. Draco trailed after her, stalking her up the stairs. It seemed that whatever was happening wasn't giving her senses back. He wasn't that far from her and she hadn't completely evaded destruction now had she?

"Elena," he said. She whirled around a look of furry as he advanced on her and grabbed her by the arm, squeezing hard. She fought, but it wasn't enough. The contact was incident and destructive, zapping all of her power from her and making her head dizzy. The curse surged. A hand across her cheek and pressure on the remaining black marks made her crumple against him as he dragged her down a dark corridor. She felt sick. She was so light headed, so tired, so much pain crawling around under the skin and paralyzing her.

_"Silencio,_" he whispered so her open mouthed expulsions of air made no sound. Her eyes went wide and dark as he forced her to the ground, sliding a hand over her legs, up her skirt. The first rip was the loudest and her body thrashed to get away.

"So pretty," he crooned.

"All mine," he said.

And every part of her screamed, but her body didn't seem to understand. Sporadic electrical pulses through her with no aim or end, no outlet, just riots and glass cielings.

No. She wouldn't. She couldn't. He wouldn't win. Even if she died, he wouldn't win. Even if she would never be free, she wouldn't be a willing slave. She wouldn't. The revolution was coming and would not be televised. It would not be stopped. Her future, her soul, her life would not be stopped because of this blonde haired idiot with a inferiority complex. He would not win, he would not have her.

She'd die first.

Something like a gale force wind leapt out of her and he tumbled down the stairs at her kick, scrambling for her legs as she ran past him. She tripped tumbling down the spiral staircase. A sickening crack and cry but she didn't stop. Craddling her arm against her chest as he yelled after her, the curse tugged, slowing her movements, but the adrenaline, the fear of death impending.

_Blaise..._she had to see Blaise. Just one last time before everythign gave way, before the surge came back and realized what she'd done. Blaise. She had to see Blaise. She pulled off the shiny bracelet as she collapsed and screamed.

_BLAISE!_

Luckily for her, Blaise was more sensitive to shifts in magic than Draco gave him credit for. At first touch, Blaise had felt something snap. The loom of the contract was broken inside him and his heart kicked up to a maddened samba in his chest, his stomach did the rhumba and his legs ran out the Great Hall doors and down the corridor, wand taken out and aimed at every dark shadow as he made it down the hall. The contract was broken... Elena was in trouble.

"No running in the halls!"

He ignored whichever professor that was and went faster, getting closer, the pull getting stronger and the sense of danger was much worse.

"_YOU BITCH!_"

The sluggish scramble of pained footsteps rushing away, he heard them and went after them deciding to deal with Draco later. He had to get to Elena. The tug was getting stronger, clenching his inner cavity and tugging it down into a deep dark place. She was scared and dying he knew that, but it didn't have to be that way. He found her in front of the Room of Requirements, catching her as she collapsed to the ground, choking. He collapsed under the psychic call, _BLAISE _blaring in his head. His eyes fluttered at the intensity, but he pulled her close at the sound of silent choking. Blood bubbling up from her throat, pooling in her eyes and streaming into her hair. Her hair was black now, eyes black too and she was trembling. The marks slithered across her neck and over half her face.

He'd kill Draco, just as soon as he got her to calm down. The shaking grew to seizing slowly as he wrapped her in his cloak, bundling her against the cold and cast a quick healing charm on arm and pulled her into his arms, ready to run to the infirmary with her in his arms.

"It's alright honey, you need to calm down. Calm down honey, you're going into shock, do you hear me?! Elena!"

Her eyes did register his face above hers, but she did, quaking arms extended out of the bundle of the cloak to grab at his tie, pulling tugging him down until their lips sealed together. Blood dripped to the floor and everything stopped for longer than forever. The tinge of copper and death on his tongue didn't dull the taste of Elena's last breaths.

"Blaise?! What's this all about... what..."Hermione came up on the scene followed by McGongall and Rafael toting Draco with his wand pressed against the blonde's neck.

"Move, I dare you," he growled and Draco's head lolled at the swimming feeling of the castle walls banged against his head when Rafael had gotten a hold of him and realized that the the scratch across his face had been from Elena.

Tears burning blue streaks across his cheeks, too much, too fast all of it too fast. What had he done? How could this happen? Why? Those eyes, those beautiful eyes wouldn't look at him, couldn't. They weren't even red, just sick black despair and sanguine tracks. No light reached them, they didn't see him, and he knew that she didn't feel him anymore.

"Come on, honey... come on, talk to me..."

Sounds from the left but not from her, not from her any more. Dear Gods, why? Why?

"Come on, you have to wake up honey. You have to wake up!"

More noises, forces on his shoulders, shaking him, moving, but he didn't budge, his abs held a revolt and pushed, shrugging them away and focusing on the face that would no longer answer him, the eyes that no longer saw him.

"Wake up! WAKE UP!"

More noises, more forces, but he didn't move, pulling her into his arms, kissing her pliant lips and rocking her, whimpering, "Elena, I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do, don't leave now. I love you! I love you damnit! I love you!"

"_I love you_," he sobbed shaking his head. "I'm so sorry...Please El'... El'... Elena...Please..._please_."

No response and after a while they realized that he would let her go, nor let anyone else touch her. She stayed craddled to his chest as he marched up the stairs to their quarters through the opening and into her room. He laid her under the sheets, removing her cloak, her shoes and socks, loosening her clothing so she could lay-sleep in peace. He took a wash cloth and bathed her face, cleaning the blood away and under her fingernails where she'd scratched the hell out of Draco. He kissed her cheek and breathed easy.

"I love you and I'll see you in the morning."

When he walked out out and closed the door, he refused to entertain anyone, tearing the contract off his own wall and staring through the bleak year he'd had. If only he'd... maybe if he'd... couldn't she...

So many unfinished thoughts, so may things...What happened to those plans they made? All the time they had... all the things they hadn't said? What happened to everything that he'd dreamed of? Those stolen moments that promised more? He thought back to the night of the party, when everything in him was in a revolt against everything else and the world. The only thing that seemed steady was her in his arms, the only thing that felt anything like love and solidarity... and now she was gone... now she was gone.

Once he realized that he wouldn't be able to sleep in his own room, he wouldn't be able to sleep at all he went into her room, crawled a long side her, took her hand and told her the truth. He made it to one hundred and two thirds before the headache and the terror dragged him into sleep.

"I love you... I love you...I love..."

* * *

The contract burst into white flames and became nothing more but words on the page. Noemi's stomach tightened as they looked at each other and the man went back to sleep.

"Do you think it worked?" Vera asked as Aleksandr squeezed the man's hand, staring at his sleeping face. "Aleks?"

"I don't know," he said. "This isn't exactly... what I expected...I don't know."

Vera nodded, rubbing his back and kissing his cheek, "Try to get some rest okay? I'll bring you some clothes and we'll go deal with the rest."

He smiled at her, "You're the absolute best."

She gave him the blanket and left when he was comfortable at the bedside. When she arrived at the house and packed the bag and everything else there were about three things on her desk: letters from the Ministry and call to orders. An incident invovling dark magic at Hogwartts and a bunch more paperwork to do in relation to the case. She took Noemi with her to the office and together they sifted through the copious amount of documents and made up plans to go interrogate for the case.

Aleksandr woke up to the sound of talking voices.

"... you're quite the charmer."

"Only when I need to be," someone grinned and he turned his head to the sound. The nurse was checking over the man and smiling at whatever he was saying.

"Good morning, Alexander... or is it Aleksandr now?"

He smiled and swallowed, "For you... I'm always Alexander."

He nodded, "Where is Elena?"

Aleksandr shook his head, "Still in school... last year."

"I've... been gone a long time then."

"Almost twelve years..."

He hissed and sat up as the nurse left saying that the doctor would probably authorize his release soon.

"It seems... that I have a lot to learn..."

He nodded, "Yeah, don't worry. It won't be to bad."

Vera came back with a stack of information and they spent the hour before he was declared okay to leave bringing him up to speed on Elena and Blaise and everything else that could possibly matter. As they expected, he wanted to go straight to Hogwartts.


End file.
